BUFFALO TWP — The low bid for roof work to the Freeport School District buildings is nearly $860,000.

Rush Architectural Metal Erectors of Washington, Pa., submitted the lowest of five bids opened Thursday afternoon at the district administration office. The low total bid was $859,890.

Each contractor listed a base bid to replace a chunk of the high school roof and an alternate bid to do fixes on other sections of that roof, as well as the roofs of two elementary schools, Buffalo and South Buffalo.

R.A.M.E. submitted $789,500 for the base bid with an alternate bid of $70,390.

The next lowest bid was more than $1 million from Triangle Roofing of Pittsburgh, with another $110,000 to do the repairs.

The highest bid to do the roof section replacement was nearly $1.19 million from Miller-Thomas-Gyekis of Pittsburgh. However, MTG's alternate bid for the repairs was $261,931.

Tuscano-Maher Roofing of Saltsburg in Indiana County submitted the highest total bid with $1.17 million for the replacement and another $297,000 for the repairs.

Pennsylvania Roofing Systems of Bakerstown in Allegheny County was the fifth company, submitting more than $1 million for the base bid with another $206,000 for the rest.

Ryan Manzer, district business manager, and Michael Lechleitner of Florida Consulting are reviewing all the bids to ensure they meet the necessary requirements.

Manzer said a contract should be awarded at the next school board meeting.

“If everything is confirmed, we'll move forward with the bid award Wednesday,” he said.

Alternate bids come into play if items need to be cut from a project to cut costs.

Before bids for this work were sought, the project's estimated cost was $1 million.

The money will come from the district's capital reserves budget, which has $4 million.

Work is expected to be done before the fall classes begin.

The high school was built in the early 1960s, with the most recent roof replacement done nearly 40 years ago.