After six different contractors examined the decaying roof of the C.H. Booth Library, the Library’s Board of Trustees laid out various restoration options to the Legislative Council December 15.

Library board Building and Grounds Chair David Schill said over the last six months or so, officials have been in talks with six contractors who have given quotes ranging from $470,000 to replace the entire roof with asphalt, to approximately $80,000 for minor repairs to the slate sections.

They also received varying opinions on whether immediate remediation was needed to get another year or so out of the existing roof. Some contractors said they did not want to work on slate, while another who specialized in slate roofs did not want to work on a municipal-owned building due to prevailing wage requirements, Schill related.

The slate comprises about 3,500 square feet of the total 20,000 square foot roof, with the rest being asphalt shingles. Most of the leaks are currently under control except for one on the third floor that “remains an active leak,” he said.

The sixth contractor Schill talked to does restorations of historic buildings, “specifically in the historic restorations of slate roofs,” who has done work on government buildings in Washington, D.C.

The contractor, who Schill did not name at the meeting, said that the lower three feet of the existing slate roof is in “poor condition and needs maintenance” — and that there is broken and failing slate near the front entrance. There is rot at the edges, and the contractor conjectured that the water shield was not installed correctly or had failed. The rot was likely caused by ice damage under the slate tiles.

“His assessment was that the roof was not in need of replacement,” said Schill. “It just needs maintenance at the perimeter. It’s common for contractors not familiar with slate to look at the damage, think the situation is dire and rip it off and replace it.”

The contractor estimated $80,000 to $150,000 for the repair job. With that maintenance done, the roof could “get another 20 years” of life.

“But for that money, we could do a lot of work with asphalt shingles,” said Schill. He added that the existing asphalt roof is more than 30 years old and also in need of replacement, though that need is not as immediate.

Councilman Ryan Knapp questioned the timing of the work to figure out what the Legislative Council was being asked to do. He wanted to know how soon the work needed to be done, whether the project needed to be added to the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for this year, or whether it needed to be put into next year’s CIP.

Schill answered that while the roof is no longer believed to be in imminent danger of collapse, it is failing.

“If we have a mild winter, we could push it to spring,” said Schill.

Library Director Doug Lord said that what the town is looking at is keeping the historic nature of the building with slate or looking at it from a cost savings angle. He said that the cost of slate was roughly six times that of asphalt shingles.

Council chairman Jeff Capeci said, “it’s an aesthetics thing.”

“It’s a building with a rich history,” said Capeci. “The slate will look better from Main Street if we can get the same life and the price is reasonable.”

Lord said that the library was an “old structure, that needs some TLC.” He noted that the roof has “been on the CIP for years,” and was pushed back because no one “understood the magnitude of the issue.”

“Not until we got the leaks and the water was pouring in,” said Lord.

Lord said if the winter is mild, maybe a few of the slate shingles might fall off. If the winter is bad, a few rows of the shingles might fall off.

Whether the roof would cave in, he didn’t know. “I’d venture a guess and say it’s not that bad, and will last through the winter,” said Lord.

“We ended up in this place because [originally] we were told the first snowfall would take the roof down,” said Library Board President Michelle Brown. “We can back off that now.”

Knapp told the library board members that they “don’t have to do this alone.”

“There are a lot of decisions to make, and it doesn’t have to be all on you,” said Knapp, who asked if the Public Buildings and Site Commission (PBSC) could lend some of its expertise. Council member Michelle Embree Ku recommended that because it was a public building, that the PBSC and town Purchasing Agent Rick Spreyer could be used for “negotiations to get the best price for the tax money.”

Lord replied saying while the library is getting a structural analysis and we are putting something together to put things out to bid, “if the town has further resources, I’m all for it.”

Councilman Dan Honan asked if it would be a hardship for the library to use its fund balance, as was the recommendation of the Board of Finance in November. The library currently has a fund balance of approximately $800,000.

Brown said that the money is used for projects that are “not at the CIP level,” such as new shelving or furniture, but is for items the library donors expect their money to be used for, such as funding programs and buying books.

“We have a good faith understanding with our donors that we will use the money for those things, and not to repair a roof,” said Brown.

At a previous council meeting, Library Treasurer Gregory Branecky told the council that the library’s yearly budget is $1.6 million, of which $1.4 million comes from the town. Each year, the library has to fundraise for the other $200,000 of its annual operating budget.

That budget is used for maintenance, salaries, programming, and a number of other things.

He said that using $420,000 from the library’s fund balance is using 60 percent of it, and that would “hurt fundraising,” which “is down since COVID,” decreasing by about five percent per year over the last few years.

Library Board Trustee Amy Dent said during her time as the previous board president — since 2017 — there has been a turnover of 14 trustees, 12 of them in the past two years. Five of the trustees were involved in budgeting and grounds management. Additionally, the library has lost three directors since 2016.

This has made planning how to spend money in the fund balance difficult.

Dent said that Branecky did an analysis of where the fund balance money originated from, since it was “comingled” from a number of sources, including a PPP (Payroll Protection Program) grant, fundraising, and a surplus from what it receives yearly from the town. She said that the PPP money is gone, used to meet safety issues from the COVID-19 pandemic, including masks, plastic shields, improving air flow quality, and brown-bagging books to bring to patrons outside the library.

Ku asked for a detailed cost analysis before the council makes any decision, and Capeci asked if the library board could come back to the council on January 19 with more information including detailed quotes.

Reporter Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.