KINGSTON — Enough has finally become enough with regard to the incessant dripping coming from the Wolfle Elementary roof.

Due in part to this winter rains and partly to old age, Wolfle students’ sky has been falling. More specifically drops of watery sludge have been seeping through different spots of the ceiling throughout the 2006-2007 school year.

“It’s this nasty brown junk … it stains and doesn’t come out,” Wolfle principal Ben Degnin said. “There was some damage being done, we’re just glad that it didn’t make it to the computers.”

The battered roof covering Wolfle students’ heads has been in need of a replacement for some time now, Degnin said. Despite a slate of school remodel projects — none of which are scheduled at Wolfle — built into its capital programs budget, the North Kitsap School District is finally pondering a replacement as maintenance crews’ patchwork will no longer suffice.

As it stands now, portions of the roof are being protected by tarps.

“The roof has basically failed due to what has been told to us as an improper design,” NKSD director of maintenance Dave Dumpert said. “There are just so many leaks that you are chasing your tail for lack of a better term … spending a whole lot of money patching something that needs to be fixed.”

Dumpert said NKSD crews spent between $7,000-$8,000 last year patching the 18-year-old roof. Now, the district is looking at an estimated $300,000-$350,000 for a replacement, said NKSD director of finance and operations Nancy Moffatt.

Moffatt said she plans to recommend the school board cover the cost of a replacement by dipping into interest funds that have been generated on investments made into the capital projects fund. She said there is enough money available, but any change to the spending of capital moneys — approved by voters in 2002’s capital programs bond — requires a public hearing.

A hearing date is pending, and interested residents can contact NKSD director of community relations Chris Case for more information.

Following the hearing, Moffat hopes to make a recommendation at the March 8 board meeting.

“It’s kind of a sad situation really because of the way that the funding is set up for the school district, their arms are really tied,” said Wolfle fourth grade teacher Tamara Stone, whose room has taken to brunt of the damage with eight active leaks. “It is quite a mess, literally.”

“(The money) really just isn’t there,” Degnin said. “The district is really trying to not cut money from the classrooms as much as possible, so that means its coming out of other things, like maintenance.”

Dumpert said the maintenance department’s budget has gotten slimmer each year since he became director in 2000. And each year the money coming from the state to support basic education has also decreased.

With the Wolfle roof begging for replacement, it is the only major repair project slated for his crews this summer, Dumpert said, other than routine maintenance and preparing schools ready for the 2007-08 year.

In upcoming years, the district may be facing a similar predicament, as the roof at Breidablik Elementary — which was created in Wolfle’s image — may face similar problems, Dumpert said.

“Breidablik will have to be replaced in the next three or four years,” he said. “We’re going to do the one we have to do and know that we’re going to have to do another in a few years.”