Board to discuss roofing

The Neosho R-5 Board of Education is expected to award a bid for a new roof on the east building of South Elementary School as it meets Monday night.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the administration building, 418 Fairground Road.

Three contractors have responded to a request for bids. They were RSS Roofing, $172,440; Joplin Roofing, $166,590; and Kirberg Roofing, $142,950.

During a work session Thursday, board member Steve Douglas expressed concern about roofing projects in general. Douglas said the district has been using Tremco roofing products. While he didnt dispute the quality of the materials, he said using Tremco products discouraged contractors who use competitive products from considering the work. This, in turn, could keep the district from getting more competitive bids on roofing projects.

[Tremco] will go to a school district and tell them we will do the specs for the project and let it out for bids for you, Douglas said in a telephone interview Saturday night. They let it out for bids, but the specs will refer to specific patent numbers, patents that Tremco holds. And at the bottom of the spec sheet is the words prepared by Tremco. When contractors see that, they think Tremco has this all sewn up.

Douglas said trying to include other materials in the projects at this juncture in the South School project would likely delay it until after the 2013-14 school year has begun. He said such a delay would be unacceptable and that the project needed to be completed this summer.

But, he added, he would like to discuss it at Mondays meeting in order to make the bidding process more fair in the future.

Meanwhile, two companies have submitted bids for tuckpointing work at Central School and sealing and painting exterior walls at South Elementary.

Branco Enterprises bid $79,000 for the Central project and $56,000 for the South School renovations. Meanwhile, MTS Contracting put in a $51,500 bid for the Central work, and $22,500 for the work at South.

The board is also expected to vote on a change order for a new scoreboard at the softball field.

Read more here:
Board to discuss roofing