A contract for roofing work at four schools not to exceed roughly $450,000 recently was awarded by the Mehlville Board of Education.

School-board members voted unanimously to award a contract to Geissler Roofing in the amount of $374,200 plus a 20-percent contingency of $74,840 for a total not-to-exceed amount of $449,040. The contingency will allow any unknown conditions to be addressed that may be uncovered during the work.

Geissler Roofing’s bid was the lowest and best of four submitted, according to district officials.

Of the four roofing projects, the largest is at Point Elementary School and totals $336,600. The other roofing projects include Mehlville Senior High School, $25,600; Oakville Senior High School, $4,800; and Wohlwend Elementary School, $7,200.

The roofing projects are being funded through the Proposition P districtwide building improvement program. Through Proposition P, which included improvements at every district school, three new buildings were constructed — Bernard Middle School, Oakville Elementary School and the John Cary Early Childhood Center.

While the districtwide building improvement program concluded with the construction of the new early childhood center in 2005, roofing improvements will continue over the next few years so that all of the roofs on district buildings will not have to be replaced at the same time in the future.

Voters in November 2000 approved Proposition P, a nearly $68.4 million bond issue funded by a 49-cent tax-rate increase.

However, a final budget revision approved by the school board in December 2005 raised the Proposition P budget to $89,137,440 — a roughly 30.3-percent increase — more than $20.7 million over the nearly $68.4 million building-improvement program originally envisioned.

In June 2006, the Board of Education voted unanimously to establish the Proposition P Review Committee, which ultimately answered roughly 100 questions about the building program and made five policy and 10 procedural recommendations for future building projects.

The school board later voted to accept the committee’s recommendations, which are being followed, Superintendent Terry Noble has said.

The roofing work at Point Elementary, Mehlville High, Oakville High and Wohlwend Elementary will be performed this summer, according to Chief Financial Officer Noel Knobloch.

District officials are performing the remaining roofing projects over the next few years, Knobloch said, noting that work at Hagemann Elementary School likely will be done during the summer of 2010.

Roofing projects that remain total roughly $1.5 million. Among the other remaining roofing projects are the Administration Building, the Witzel Learning Center, the Maintenance Building, the Bus Garage Office and Mehlville Senior High.