New London — Eleven months after the state found two serious health hazards at the New London Police Department headquarters, officials are still working to stop water infiltration during heavy rains.

City Risk Manager Paul Gills invited the Division of Occupational Safety and Health for a consultation after the police union said weakened plasterboard was falling onto employees’ heads in January.

Officials found mold and mouse droppings in the 5 Gov. Winthrop Blvd. headquarters during their Jan. 26 visit. They asked the city to remove water-damaged materials and launch a better extermination program by April 2.

Gills said the visit was a catalyst for improvements to the building that have gone beyond what the state recommended.

Since March, Branford-based A. Secondino & Son Inc. has re-caulked 32 windows, installed flashing, waterproofed the brick veneer, replaced the roof access door and replaced a 60-by-2-foot section of the flat roof.

The city chose A. Secondino because it installs new roofs but also analyzes existing ones, Public Works Director Brian Sear said. The estimated $65,127 spent so far came from the maintenance line of the Public Works budget, he said.

The city also paid for a wood frame to cover a leaky skylight and has allotted $40,500 to fix the membrane roof system beneath the patio outside the building. The patio, which will have to be uninstalled during construction, is over the prisoner holding area — another area that sometimes leaks.

“It’s architecturally interesting … but there are lots of nooks and crannies,” Sear said of the building, which police began using in 1985. “We’ve chased the leaks as they’ve come. There wasn’t just one main roof we could fix.”

Sear said workers found surprisingly little mold when they gutted the shift commander’s office, the condition of which is what prompted the union’s January complaint.

They were preparing to put the room back together when heavy rains caused “significant leaking” in one corner earlier this month, Sear said. Sear said the recent leaking suggests a “brick-wicking problem.”

“We’re thinking when there’s steady rain coming down and when there are winds off the river, the water actually is going through the brick,” Sear said. “It’s a cumulative issue. Once some water is through the brick, it draws itself in even faster.”

Sear said the city will fund another project to clean and seal the affected brick, which should stop the shift commander’s office from leaking.

Gills said the city satisfied the state's requests when it updated its extermination program, removed water-damaged tiles and gutted the shift commander’s office and a nearby room a captain had been using. A spokeswoman with the state Department of Labor said the case was closed Oct. 11, meaning the city asked for more time but did meet the requirements.

Chief Peter Reichard said he doesn’t know when the supervisors’ space will reopen, but when it does it will look different. He and Public Works officials created a plan to split the two offices into three so supervisors can have more privacy and the shift commander can be next to the dispatch center.

Reichard said Public Works was researching whether to do the work in-house or contract it out.

Gills said the city also has funded other projects for the building, including updating ventilation controls, adding a gas boiler, expanding the parking lot by 24 spaces and adding a left turn lane so police could access the parking lot without having to U-turn at the intersection of Gov. Winthrop Boulevard and Water Street.

The cost of those projects was not immediately available.

“We’re happy with a lot of the things that have been done,” police union President Todd Lynch said.

Lynch said he didn’t know why the supervisors’ space still was closed, but expected to find out during his monthly meeting with Reichard, Mayor Michael Passero and Chief Administrative Officer Steven Fields.

Lynch said the captain has been using the deputy chief’s office — New London hasn't had a deputy chief since former Chief Margaret Ackley retired in January last year — the shift commander has been using the roll call room and roll call has been happening in the kitchen since January.

“We thought (the supervisors’ space) would be done by now,” Lynch said. “That said, things are continuing to move in a positive direction under this administration.”

Passero said the city is committed to fixing issues in the building, which happened over decades and “can’t be fixed in six months."

“There’s no excuse that a succession of city administrations weren’t addressing those issues and putting effort into fixing them instead of just saying it was a bad design,” Passero said.

l.boyle@theday.com