Southeast schools overspend on roof repairs was closer to $40,000, district says

Concerns that Southeast schools misspent almost $400,000 on high school roof repairs may be quieted after Brian Kinter, the district’s business manager, told The Portager the highest possible figure wasted was closer to 10% of that.

Kinter said he contacted roofing material manufacturer Johns Manville for a list of items that could potentially have been covered under warranty. He gave that list to Tremco, the roofing and building maintenance company that completed the work earlier this year, and learned that the parts that potentially could have been under warranty totaled $42,227.

“It is important to note that JM could not guarantee any warranty coverage when the JM representative joined me on the roof,” Kinter said, referencing an early-August meeting.

The issue is rooted in Southeast’s December 2024 decision to repair two sections of the high school roof. One work contract called for Tremco to repair work Boak & Sons had completed in 2018 over the high school’s science, Future Farmers of America and carpentry wing. Repairs to that section could potentially have been under warranty if the membrane had failed, Kinter said.

Because he did not meet with JM until Tremco had completed repairing that section of the roof, there was no way to know exactly what aspect of the roof failed, Kinter said. Even so, JM credited the district the amount it had paid for the warranty for that section of roof.

A second part of Southeast’s contract with Tremco called for repairing an almost 20-year-old roof over the high school’s language arts wing. That job was completed in April of this year and never involved work that may have been under warranty, Kinter said.