Due to a botched roof-replacement job, a tarp covers a portion of the roof at the Mt. Jewett Fire Hall. The contractor for the work has been fired by the McKean County Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which is overseeing the roofing job as a federal community-development project.

A federally-funded project to replace the roof on the Mt. Jewett Fire Hall has been botched.

The contractor for the job has been “fired,” according to Dusti Pantuso, who is the executive director of the McKean County Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

The authority, which oversees the federal community-development program, awarded a contract for the roof-replacement project to a contractor known as “K. Company” of Campbell, Ohio. The company’s bid of $16,200 was by far the lowest of five received for the work, Pantuso said.

The authority gave the contractor a “notice to proceed” on July 1, Pantuso said. The contractor was expected to complete the roofing job within 30 days.

Work still is not complete.

A large blue tarp has been placed over a section of the fire hall roof to provide a temporary protective cover.

Pantuso said the contractor has been “fired” for failing to complete the roof work. The authority, which approves projects using federal community-development funds, now plans to seek another contractor to finish the job, Pantuso said.

“We feel bad that the fire department had to go through this,” Pantuso said. “It’s an unfortunate event. Nobody wanted this to happen.”

Although the contractor was given the go-ahead to begin work July 1, the roofing job didn’t commence until July 28, Pantuso said. This late starting date meant the contractor had just three days to complete the work within the timeframe set by the authority.

The Mt. Jewett Volunteer Fire Department was hoping the roofing project would be complete before the start of the annual Mt. Jewett Swedish Festival on Aug. 8-10. However, the blue tarp on the roof is a visible indication that the work has not been completed now—more than two weeks after the end of the festival.

According to Pantuso, the contractor’s references were “checked out” before the contract was awarded. She said the contractor is facing a $100-per-day penalty for failing to complete the work by July 31. This issue has been referred to the authority’s attorney for possible legal action, she said.

Pantuso said the roofing project at the fire hall “shouldn’t be this difficult” because of the basic design of the roof. She estimated that the contractor completed just “a little over 50 percent” of the work. The authority already has paid the contractor $8,500 for completing part of the roof, she said.

“It was time to let them go,” Pantuso said in explaining why the contractor was fired for failing to complete the job in a timely fashion.

Because some of the plywood panels beneath the shingles were found to be rotten and in need of replacement, the cost to complete the roofing project is expected to rise.

“When they pulled back the shingles, they saw that some of the plywood needed to be replaced,” Pantuso said. “We didn’t foresee the plywood problem.”

She said the authority is trying to find additional funding to cover the expected higher cost to fix the botched roof job.

Mt. Jewett, Kane and several other communities in McKean County each year file applications for federal community-development funding for projects. The authority oversees the federal projects in most of the eligible communities in the county. Bradford handles its own federal community-development projects.