News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County will be working to complete several school roofing projects over the course of the next year.
Mayor Randy Porter said two large projects will be going out for bid in the near future.
“One of them being Cookeville High School and the other one being Cane Creek [Elementary School] that will both be completed in this upcoming budget year,” Porter said. “Cookeville High School had to be divided into two projects because the roof is so big. We’re going to do half of it this year in the capital projects budget and next year we will do the other half.”
The Cane Creek Elementary and Cookeville High School projects will cost an estimated $2.6 million. The county plans to spend another $2 million to complete the second half of the CHS roof.
Meantime, Porter said crews have completed about 90-percent of a $1.1 million roofing project at Baxter Elementary.
“They’ve been working on it through the summer,” Porter said. “Our goal with the school was to try to get that done while schools was out.”
The county budgeted the Baxter Elementary project in the 2018-2019 budget.
Putnam County has maintained all school roofs since the creation of a county roofing department in the 1980’s. Porter said the county hopes to let go of that responsibility in a few years.
“The goal is to get them all completed, up to date, and under warranty for the next 20 to 30-years,” Porter said. “Then the school system is going to take them back over once we finish each roof.”
Porter said earlier this year that Putnam County has spent about $7 million in roof replacements over the past four years.
