District sets timeline for Ephrata High roof project

EPHRATA — A timeframe on the roof replacement at Ephrata High School was discussed at the Ephrata School District board meeting Monday evening.  

“We’ve been doing some work getting prepared for that to start moving,” said ESD Superintendent Ken Murray. 

Assistant Superintendent Aaron Cummings said he did a walkthrough with consulting firm Design West last week to put together a timeline where the final drawings for the plan will be submitted to the city for permits by April 10.  

Bidding and advertisement will happen from April 12-19, with a walkthrough April 21, and the final bid openings will be May 7. Cummings said he is hoping they will see approval May 18. 

“If everything goes well, we plan on offering the contract and starting construction right after school gets out, and we will be substantially complete by the first day of school,” he said. “We will have some things we probably will need to wrap up, but it won’t interrupt anything that’s going on within the school in the fall.” 

The project will involve some minor internal work on the building, including the replacement of the ceiling tiles damaged by leaks, some work on the ceiling in the computer server room in the mezzanine area and areas where water damage has caused some drywall issues. 

Funding for this project is already on hand in the district Sarah Morford told the Columbia Basin Herald in a previous interview. These funds are in part, but not entirely, from the general fund, said Allison Razey, Director of Business and Finance at ESD. 

“It will not completely be paid for out of our general fund,” Razey said. “We do have the $500,000 that we budgeted at the beginning of the year to be transferred to capital, so we would potentially use those funds in addition to existing capital funds that we have set aside for that, and then potentially tap into some leftover capital levy funds if we chose to go that route.”