Person County Board of Education Chairman Gordon Powell said Monday that work was progressing nicely on the project, despite an initial setback of nearly a month due to state Department of Insurance delays.

The slab for the bus garage was poured last Thursday, Powell said, and work was taking place this week on the slab for the fuel station, which requires a separate pad and fuel tank enclosures.

Powell said the rain on Sunday may have delayed the work for a day or so, but that overall, “work is going OK.”

He said the contractor had told him that steel erection for the bus garage building should begin this week.

“I don’t know if the rain will hamper that,” Powell said, but the delay, if there is one, should last for only one or two days.

He said that “a large percentage of this thing [project] is the floor. That’s the hard part.” The concrete slab had to be poured, said Powell, and fitted with plumbing and electrical before work on the metal and brick structure could begin.

The erection of the building and work on the brick façade should move along at a fairly good pace, Powell said, barring any weather delays between now and May.

In October, Larry King, director of Environmental Services for the school system, told Powell and the other members of the school board that the Department of Insurance in Raleigh had delayed the beginning of the project due to a few “minor questions.”

The contractor for the project, E.M. Wilkerson & Sons, could not obtain a building permit until the Department of Insurance gave its approval. This week, Powell said the delay had put the work three to four weeks behind.

When the project is complete, it will signify the end of a six-year quest to replace the aging bus garage on Leasburg Road. For the past several years, student transportation workers have been unable to drive today’s large buses into the bays at the old garage.