Trustees will mull building project options at workshop

The Cherokee County School Board will hold a workshop Monday to finalize plans for the district’s next building program.

A community learning center, ninth grade additions at Blacksburg and Gaffney highs, a Gaffney High football stadium and a classroom addition at Goucher Elementary are among the projects being considered.

School board members were reluctant to make a final decision at Tuesday’s meeting when InReFinancial, a Greenville financial consultant firm, asked for the school board’s approval to move forward with developing an installment purchase plan for financing the building program.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions. We need to get a clearer idea of what direction we need to go and determine what building projects we can afford before making any final decisions,” school board chairperson Sandra Greene said. “We hope to discuss our next step at the next board meeting.”

The installment purchase plan presented by InReFinancial would involve the school board setting up a nonprofit corporation to issue bonds for the district to fund the building projects.

The installment purchase plan would work much like a home mortgage, Sinkler and Boyd bond attorney Theo DuBose said. The nonprofit organization would issue bonds to build the schools. The cost is paid off over time similar to making house payments.

“The law does not allow members of the nonprofit organization to receive any benefit,” DuBose said. “It is set up as a way for the district to fund building projects without a tax increase.”

The district would use “Eight Percent Money” to make annual payments on the buildings over a 25-year period, DuBose said. “Eight Percent Money” is the maximum amount of the money the district can borrow without holding a bond referendum.

Unlike buying a home, DuBose said the district would gain ownership of the school buildings as the bond payments are repaid.

There are eight school districts currently using this financial model including Greenville, Dorchester 2, Berkeley, Lancaster, Laurens 55 and Newberry.

School trustees received preliminary plans in August for a Blacksburg High ninth grade addition.

Southern Management, a Columbia construction management firm, has been involved in the initial planning stages of the Blacksburg High project. Southern Management has offered to put together cost estimates for any of the district’s other proposed school building projects.

Even if school trustees made a decision tomorrow, Southern Management principal architect Tom Baldwin said a new Blacksburg High ninth grade addition would not be ready for use next school year.

“We are looking at four to five months to do the final design work and get approval from the state Department of Education for the construction project,” Baldwin told school trustees. “Once a bid is awarded, we are looking at a minimum of nine to 12 months for construction. The earliest the school could be in the new facility is December of 2006.”