The passage of the Vicksburg Warren School District’s bond referendum is official.

At Thursday’s Board of Trustees meeting, the board officially passed a resolution certifying the results of the election and that it passed with at least 60 percent of the vote.

Since the bond’s passage, the district has been working with Dale/Bailey Architects to begin the process of designing and planning the scope of work that will be accomplished under the $131.5 million plan, $83 million of which will be funded through the bond approved in March.

The Board of Trustees took the first concrete step towards work beginning Thursday as they approved Dale/Bailey to advertise and receive bids for three rounds of roofing.

The first phase will include Beechwood Elementary School, Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools and Vicksburg Junior High School. The bids will be advertised starting May 23. The plan is for the work to start in late July and finish in early March.

“One of the reasons we are pushing those the quickest is to try and get the dirtiest work done this summer,” Gary Bailey with Dale/Bailey said. “Some work will be taking place during the school year. Some of it will be done at night. Some of it will be done after school hours. Once we get a dry, secure first layer of the roof on, the roofers can work while school is going on when testing is not occurring.”

Some of the roof projects will also include additional work, as roofs that are currently flat will have to be modified to include a slope as mandated by the state.

“They have to have a minimum slope of a quarter of an inch,” Bailey said. “We sometimes go a little above that. My goal is that you put a basketball on the roof and it will flow off. Our goal is to get water off the roof.”

The second phase of roofing projects will include Dana Road Elementary, Sherman Avenue Elementary, Vicksburg Intermediate and Warren Central Intermediate. The planned date for the bid process to begin for those schools is July 11.

The third phase includes Bovina, Bowmar, Redwood and Warrenton elementary schools with a planned first advertisement date of Aug. 22.