The Pearl River School District’s Board of Trustees held a special meeting the evening of June 1 to discuss the approval of the change order for the Building F renovations.

The project is located on the elementary campus in McNeill and will end up becoming the new elementary library.

District Business Manager TJ Burleson said the old blueprints of the building from the 1960s indicated the roof was open and unsupported by the walls.

Plans were made for the renovation of the building with that in mind, but when contractors went in to begin work they found the walls were actually load bearing.

This necessitated the original plan being sent back to the architect where it was redesigned and submitted to the contractor.

The new plan takes into account the fact that the walls are load bearing, which means the workers will have to install a series of beams and columns to support the roof when the old walls are demolished.

The change order increased the amount of the contract by approximately $28,000, which Burleson said would come out of the district’s fund balance.

The need to alter the change order hasn’t affected the timeline of the construction project.

Burleson said no work could be done on the building until school was out of session because the building housed several classrooms, which meant construction wasn’t set to take place until the current time period anyway.

Since school is out of session, work can begin on the project with the hope that all construction on the project will be completed in late August or early September.

The Board’s next regularly scheduled meeting will take place June 11 at 5:30 p.m. in the Endeavor School Chapel.