A new roof for the Shawano County Courthouse is expected to be completed within the next three months.
The Public Property Committee on Friday unanimously accepted the low bid from Felts Construction, based in Shawano. Felts bid $184,716, more than $80,000 below the $265,000 budgeted for the project.
The decision was an easy one, as the only other bid came from Craft Inc., of Manitowoc. Not only was the bid of $324,499 too high, but Maintenance Director Steve Dreher said the contractor failed to acknowledge an addendum and did not contact him for specifications of the project, per the legal notice, until four days after the deadline had passed.
“On our bidding sheet, whenever there’s an addendum, they need to acknowledge receipt of that addendum,” Dreher said, adding that the committee had the ability to waive the errors if it chose to do so.
Dreher noted that he was concerned about the roof project going over budget when he opened the Craft bid first. Bids for two previous roof replacements, for the county jail and the Mielke Arts Center, came in significantly higher than what the County Board had approved as the budget for those projects.
In both of the cases, Dreher had to go to the Finance Committee and the County Board to request additional funds. The jail roof expense came out of the Sheriff’s Department carryover fund, while the Mielke roof required tapping the general fund.
“I was afraid we’d have to go back to the County Board, which holds everything up,” Dreher said.
Additional contractors were interested in the project, Dreher said, but did not put in a bid because they were busy with other work.
Felts Construction plans to start work on the roof replacement in the next 30 to 45 days, and the project is expected to be completed no later than Oct. 31.
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