EAST PROVIDENCE — At the behest of acting city manager Tim Chapman, the city council at its Tuesday, Oct. 18, meeting tabled a proposal to approve a structural review of East Providence High School in favor of a broader, more varied feasibility study of all buildings throughout the district.

Mr. Chapman said he was at first in favor of a recommendation by Schools Superintendent Kathryn Crowley to hire SLAM Collaborative Inc. for only an EPHS study at a cost of $94,500. SLAM was one of five companies to submit a response to a Request For Proposal on the matter issued by the city and schools. Its bid was squarely in the middle of the five, the lowest being $87,000 and the highest being $145,000.

However, after a similar review of all East Providence school buildings by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) was recently made public, both he and the superintendent concurred it was appropriate to embark on a more comprehensive look at the status of the structures.

"We have a serious situation with our schools," Mr. Chapman told the council last Tuesday night. "This is a crisis situation. We're going to have to change our attitude going forward to get this corrected."

City and school administrators will soon formulate and engage in a new RFP for the revised study.

The idea to review the status of the high school was initially conceived almost a year ago under the direction of the council and then city manager Richard Kirby with the support of the school committee and administration. The effort was stalled for any number of reasons before taking on an obvious sense of urgency when RIDE's report came to light some two weeks ago.

In the report, every one of the district's 11 buildings were deficient in numerous areas, calling into question both their short and long term viability. Some of the needs were physical, some cosmetic and called for either immediate (1-to-5 years) or intermediate (6-to-10 years) attention.

RIDE's experts, the Providence office of the global buildings consultant firm of Jacobs, concluded just to keep the schools up to current standards it would cost upwards of $140 million.

The report considers Martin Middle School, built 40 years ago, needs about $50 million alone in repairs. The 65-year-old high school requires around $40 million in renovations while the 50-year-old Riverside Middle School has improvements needed at a cost of approximately $10 million. The eight elementary school buildings, ranging in ages from 63 to 27 years of existence in some form, each need some $5 million in upgrades.

In its Fiscal Year 2016-17 budget, the school administration set aside nearly all of its $6.5 million in surplus dollars towards infrastructure improvement, including replacement of the roof at the 27-year-old Myron Francis Elementary School in Rumford among other projects on the docket over the next 12 months.

Some of that expense, as Mr. Chapman noted, can be recouped from RIDE, which reimburses school districts up to 52 percent of costs depending on the scale of the projects and the needs of the community. The manager also referenced the effort being made in neighboring Barrington, where a referendum on the November election ballot asks voters to approve some $68 million to construct a new middle school there.

"We're taking the facilities issues very seriously. We're addressing them as quickly as we can," the superintendent said in a follow-up interview after last week's meeting.

Mrs. Crowley credited Mr. Chapman with making the initial approach on the topic of a total review, adding she considered it to be "a great idea."

The superintendent continued, "I think it will give us two good reports, two solid reports to work with. I think it will give us a really good framework of what needs to be done, what kinds of bonds we're going to need and how to formulate a strategy to address the buildings going forward."