NASHUA — As city officials continue to press for more detailed accounting of the $2 million Main Street renovations, some aldermen are questioning whether the Nashua Public Works Division should even be doing the project.

“It is a maintenance organization, not a construction company,” Alderman-at-Large David Deane said.

Deane contends that routine maintenance on other jobs throughout Nashua may not be getting accomplished if a majority of the Public Works staff is assigned to the Main Street improvement project.

“I disagree with that,” Mayor Donnalee Lozeau told Deane during an aldermanic Budget Review Committee last week. “The work they are doing is Public Works work.”

There is about 214 miles of sidewalk in the city, and the union workers have and will continue to maintain it in conjunction with the downtown project, said Lozeau.

“The city is changing the way it is doing business,” said Alderman-at-Large James Donchess. If Public Works crews are going to resume doing construction work — as they did years back — Donchess said the city needs to adjust its accounting for those major projects.

Donchess said the Board of Aldermen has a legal obligation to ask for the accounting numbers, and request that labor and equipment costs be tracked.

“To me, I don't see why you resist this,” Donchess told the mayor.

Lozeau insisted that she is willing to track the project to a certain extent, which will offer aldermen an overview of the project.

“It is not that I am unwilling to do it; it is just not as simple as you think,” said Lozeau, explaining the city's financial software system is not set up to track specific activity. “I understand that I sound silly ... we are not a cost center.”

Lozeau added that she has a fundamental disagreement as to whether labor hours should be included in the total cost of the project, explaining they are hours the city would be paying Public Works employees anyway.

She maintained that it is cheaper to have the work done internally, rather than to hire a contractor for the project.

“I am quite pleased with the work, and I am quite pleased with the cost,” said Lozeau.

The mayor predicts that the city's Main Street improvement project will cost about $2 million. However, some aldermen want more, detailed information on the project's total price tag, explaining the tally includes costs for materials only, and does not take into consideration the price of labor and equipment.

The three-year project is already under way. It includes new sidewalks, street lights, mast arms traffic posts, trees, benches, trash bins, newspaper boxes and the correction of Main Street drainage problems.

Barbara Pressly, another alderman-at-large, said the Budget Review Committee is the city's checks-and-balance board, and is responsible for asking detailed financial questions.

Not everyone feels the need for such specific accounting.

“Why would you need detailed costs,” asked Alderman Richard Dowd, Ward 2, saying the city shouldn't have to go out of its way when it isn't really necessary.

“I think people want to know,” Donchess said, adding it is a major city project that is very visible to the public.

Donchess previously filed proposed legislation that would require the mayor and the Board of Public Works to keep track of and account for all costs of the Main Street project, including labor and equipment, and report the costs to the public and aldermen within 60 days.

His legislation has not yet been voted on by the Board of Aldermen.

khoughton@newstote.com