A leaking courthouse roof has left some Warren County officials feeling soaked.

The county Financial Management Committee met Monday to consider five additions to the work being performed by Energy Savings Group. In 2019, ESG was hired by Warren County to upgrade several of its buildings.

A list was presented by committee chair County Executive Jimmy Haley. Of the changes, ESG has requested an additional $108,400 to replace the building’s shingled roof, install flashing and caulk around leaking roof windows, and perform thermal scans of roof insulation.

“I have a problem with this,” said Road Superintendent Levi Glenn. “This company was supposed to know what they were doing. We’ve invested a lot of money with them.” 

Prior to submitting the project scope and cost, ESG conducted inspections of county buildings and reported only the flat portion of the roof needed to be replaced and that section only was included in the project. 

“The shingles that are there are good,” said ESG account executive Josh McNeil, during a presentation before the Warren County Commission. 

A multi-million dollar project needs oversight, says Glenn. 

“This was a big volume of expenditures,” he said. “Nobody really knew what we were getting. There were no specifications of what we were getting. This should not be happening when you invest that much money into energy savings.”

Haley opened the meeting by pointed the blame at the county Building and Grounds Committee for not requesting complete replacement in the original project scope. 

“Building and Grounds decided that they would not do the shingled roof,” said Haley. “They could have asked for it, but they did not ask for it. After straight-line winds came through downtown and even took the roof off a building right in front of the courthouse, quite a few shingles were lost.”

Glenn questioned the legality of giving the project to ESG, “So you can legally go ahead and let these people do it without going out to bid on it.”

“Yes,” said Haley. “It’s just a change order to a contract they’ve already got.”

Glenn’s statements drew support.

“Hindsight is 20/20, but I agree with Levi,” said Commissioner Scott Rubley. “I think we should have had more detailed information. With a project that big, it was difficult to ask all the questions. It would have been nice, in hindsight, if we would have asked for more line item specifications to know where the money was being spent. The fact remains, the roof needs to be fixed at the courthouse.”

Four other change orders were also included:

Installation of 10 additional cameras at the jail. Cost: $24,200

Installation of exterior LED flood lights at main entrance of the jail. Cost: $1,319

Recess and installation of six “combi-unit toilets” in the jail’s B-Pod to improve vandal resistance. Cost: $19,825

Installation of occupancy sensors to control interior lights in the courtrooms at the courthouse. Cost: $2,229.

Financial Management Committee unanimously approved all five change orders at a total cost of $155,973. The Warren County Commission must provide its approval for those changes to the project.