Corporation that will oversee bond issue includes 2 trustees

Cherokee County School Board Chairperson Sandra Greene will appoint two members to serve on the nonprofit corporation the board will establish to oversee a $33 million bond issue.

The school board will create a nonprofit corporation to issue the bonds to pay for a new Gaffney High stadium, ninth grade additions at Blacksburg and Gaffney high schools, a Limestone Learning Center, a new field house and upgrade to the Blacksburg High football stadium, and a 6-classroom addition at Goucher Elementary.

District bonding attorney Theo Dubose said the district will transfer property deeds from these schools to the nonprofit corporation in late May to hold as collateral while the bonds are repaid. The projects will be repaid though an installment purchase plan arrangement.

The remaining members of the 5-member nonprofit corporation board will be appointed by the South Carolina Association of Government Finance Officers. These are often people employed as school finance professionals.

The school board will be sent documents over spring break that will provide more details on the nonprofit corporation and the installment purchase plan the district will use to finance the building program. Greenville is among eight school districts in the state using this financing method to pay for new school facilities.

Trustees are expected to discuss forming the nonprofit corporation at a board meeting in April.

The corporation will deed the properties back to the district as the bonds are repaid.

"It's sort of like renting to buy," Dubose said. "This is why we call it an installment purchase plan."

The bonds are expected to be issued in May.