Roof project at New Kensington-Arnold elementary school more than doubles in size, cost

A project to replace part of the leaking roof at Roy A. Hunt Elementary has more than doubled in size and cost to include all of the school’s roof.

New Kensington-Arnold School Board member Steven Sorch, who voted against the project’s enlargement, said he had no idea how the district got the prices on two project revisions, called change orders, that added nearly $870,000 to what had been a $740,000 project.

The area of roof being replaced grew by 30,600 square feet from the initial 25,300 square feet. The change makes it a total of 55,900 square feet.

Even with a change from using cold asphalt to hot, which saves the district almost $55,000, the cost increased by almost 110% to about $1.55 million.

“Me, personally, I wanted to go out for bid,” said Sorch, who works for the City of New Kensington’s public works department. “I want different bidders bidding on this job. That’s the way I do business. We don’t take just one price. We get bids for stuff.”

School board President John Cope, who voted against one of the two change orders, said the project grew after work began when it was discovered water was getting into the building’s insulation.

“This definitely needed to be done,” Cope said.

“The question we had was, ‘Should we rebid this?’” he said. “The answer we got was if we do that, there’s no guarantee the bid will be lower than what we have, and it will take extra time that we need to get this underway as soon as possible.”

Cope said he did not know how the prices on the change orders were obtained.

Sorch said the district’s business manager, Jeff McVey, handled getting the prices on the change orders.

McVey did not respond to requests for comment.

District Solicitor Tony Vigilante also did not respond to request for comment.

The board awarded the contract to replace part of the roof in April. Rather than getting contract bids on its own, the district got the price through the Omnia Partners bidding process, a cooperative purchasing organization that the state Auditor General’s Office said is permissible for the district to use.

A representative of Omnia Partners could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

At the school board meeting where the change orders were approved, McVey said Omnia got the additional costs similarly to the initial contract.

At that meeting, Vigilante said the change orders are an extension of the existing contract.

Gary Miller, a spokesman for the Auditor General’s Office, said there is no statutory limit on how much can be added to a project through change orders. A representative of the state Department of Education also found no limits in school building standards under the state code.

When the state is reimbursing a project, change orders that exceed 3% or $300,000 require approval from the Education Department, said Wayne MCullough, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.

With projects such as the Hunt roof that are locally funded, “It’s entirely at the discretion of the local board at that point,” McCullough said.

When the contract was awarded, officials said replacing part of the roof at Hunt was urgent because of damage leaks were causing. McVey said the district could pay for it from its capital reserves.

Work on the rest of the roof at Hunt, and at other district schools, was being considered for 2021. It would be paid from a $4 million loan the district later took out.

At the board meeting where the change orders were approved, McVey said fixing the entire roof at Hunt Elementary now costs less than spending more money to seal it until next year. Sorch said he was told that sealing the roof would cost about $83,000.

Board member Tim Beckes said the additional work at Hunt is more a matter of timing.

“We were planning on doing it next year anyway,” Beckes said. “I’m not happy about every time you turn around there seems to be something else. That’s the nature of home improvement or building improvements, unfortunately.”

Asked how the prices were obtained, Beckes also deferred to McVey.

Sorch vowed that next year the district will seek bids for work on the roofs at other schools.

“I’m going to be raising cane for the next couple of years,” he said. “I got three more years here. Stuff will be out for bid. I’m tired of not having stuff go out for bid.”