The Harlan Fiscal Court accepted a bid from D&I Contracting to repair the roof of the Benham Schoolhouse Inn during a meeting on Tuesday.

Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley called on Scott Noel, an engineering consultant, to bring the court up to speed on the situation with the building.

“We had a bid opening on that project last week,” Mosley said.

Noel informed the court a total of four bids were received.

“If the court has funds available to replace the entire roof…you have an apparent low bid from D&I Contracting of $110 thousand,” Noel said. “We were expecting anywhere from $120,000 to $140,000.”

According to Noel, the second and third lowest bidders came in at $130,770 and $136,000.

“I guess it boils down to the budget and how you all want us to proceed,” Noel said. “We have done our due diligence on the references on all three of the low bids. There are no complaints we were able to dig up.”

Mosley then reviewed the history of the project.

“We applied for a grant from the Frazier Foundation to address the roof on the banquet hall and were awarded $50,000,” Mosley said. “Part of the roof on the regular facility had been replaced at some point within the last 10 or 15 years. But, there were still some issues with leaking in other places on the existing facility. So, we decided what we would do was bid the entire Inn for roof replacement then also bid just the banquet hall portion to see what would come in to see if it would be favorable just to do it all. Since that process started, we’ve developed some issues with the central HVAC system, which we are responsible for, that has caused a lot of moisture to develop on the ceiling tiles in the banquet hall.”

Following further discussion, Mosley recommended accepting the $110,000 from D&I to repair the entire roof. The magistrates passed a motion following Mosley’s recommendation.

In other fiscal court activity:

• The audit of the Harlan Fiscal Court for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017 was accepted;

• The court approved payment to the Harlan County Clerk’s Office for printing 2018 tax bills;

• The 2018 property and tangible tax rates were reflected;

• The Harlan County Sheriff’s receipts for 2018 property tax bills were accepted;

• The Harlan County Sheriff’s 2017 unmined coal final settlement was accepted, subject to audit.