In a vote called one of the most difficult decisions they’ve made, the Macon County Board of Education voted during its May 3 budget retreat to pause awarding a bid for the $3.5 million East Franklin Elementary project.
“I don’t think there’s any way responsibly we could move forward on the East Franklin project,” School Board Chair Jim Breedlove said prior to the vote. “Unfortunately, with some overages on some of the things we have, we just don’t have the money to do it.”
The temporary pause could become permanent depending on how much funding for 2023-24 the school system gets from the county.
The vote comes after the bids recently came in for the five-classroom project, which earlier this year was projected to start this summer and finish by the end of 2023. However, at the April board meeting, Macon County Schools Personnel Director Todd Gibbs said the project would likely be delayed due to lead times of supplies and thus was unlikely to begin in the summer.
Three bids came in by the March 30 deadline, according to a bid sheet provided by MCS. The lowest, $3.5 million, was from Harper General Construction. The other bids were $3.546 million from Hickory Construction and $3,551,640 from H&M.
MCS Superintendent Chris Baldwin recommended the pause for multiple reasons. Chief among them was no guarantee that the county would fund the school system’s 2023-24 curriculum requests.
In the same May 3 meeting, the school board unanimously agreed to ask the county for $9,703,960 in curriculum funding for the 2023-24 fiscal year. In the last four fiscal years, the county has appropriated $8,200,141 of MCS’s curriculum requests, not counting capital outlay projects.
“Based on the historical response by the county to increases, if we start betting we’re going to get [funding increases] from [the county commissioners], we will have made a terrible, terrible mistake, because it doesn’t happen,” Breedlove told the board, saying there’s a “financial cliff” coming when ESSER funding runs out.
The ESSER funding not used for the East Franklin project could plug in that gap.
“We have ESSER funding we could consider reallocating from the East Franklin addition to cover that in the event the county does not appropriate adequate funding to our operational needs,” Baldwin said.
Currently, MCS will have around $2.6 million left of the initial $4.7 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) funding going into 2023-24, as stated in the meeting. Baldwin said they could move that remaining ESSER money into the school board’s fund balance, saying that’s a permissible use and that MCS has met all the other funding requirements that came with the money.
Baldwin added that the difference between what the county has funded and what MCS says they need in 2023-24 equates to more than 20 positions.
Additionally, Breedlove said the move will help MCS avoid using its current fund balance, estimated to be around $850,000 going into 2023-24, to make up for the projected budget shortfall. Baldwin said the school board historically had an agreement with the county commissioners to keep a fund balance of around a million and said school systems of similar size to Macon County Schools have larger fund balances. There is no state requirement for school system fund balances, but Baldwin wants to keep a healthy one for MCS in case of an emergency.
Baldwin said when the East Franklin project was initially brought up, one of the main reasons was to provide Pre-K services for the school, which that school currently does not offer.
“But, with the current plans for Franklin High School, with the consolidation of Union Academy and Franklin High School, that frees up all the space to Union Academy that could potentially be converted into Pre-K for all of the elementary schools in the Franklin area,” Baldwin said. “That would increase capacity at Cartoogechaye, at South Macon, at Iolta Valley and also provide additional Pre-K opportunities for East Franklin students. And the increased capacity particularly at Iolta Valley could open up the possibility to free classroom space at East Franklin through redistricting.”
Additionally, in conversations with LS3P, the architectural firm MCS is using for FHS and other projects, Baldwin said at this point, they recommend a new school to replace East Franklin and no further expansion after this project.
“That’s a concern for me, that we would put $4 million of our ESSER money into a school that had probably aged out of its use,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin added that this year, there’s been issues with sewer seepage at the school. Both Baldwin and Maintenance Director Tracy Tallent clarified there is no health and safety risk to the students, as the seepage is underneath the building.
“You’re building something new onto something that we actually need to put money in, to fix the plumbing,” Tallent said. “We’re not keeping up what we got here.”
Baldwin said it might be time to add a new elementary school to replace East Franklin to the county’s capital improvement plan.
“You’re talking about a 1950s building…similar to Franklin High School,” Baldwin said.
Tallent went over certain carpeting issues in the school they’ve had to recently address due to the age of the building.
“That building’s a mess,” Tallent said.
Other requests approved
Capital outlay requests totaling $18,722,462.10 were unanimously approved by the school board. This is a wish list to present to the county, which typically funds a fraction of them. Last year, the county funded $1.15 million in projects.
The requests include the $4.7 million Highlands Pre-K facility renovations that the county commissioners and school board voted to pause in February and March, a $4 million classroom addition at Cartoogechaye, plus $2 million in turf installation and outdoor classroom work at Macon Middle and Highlands School.
Out of that, $1.09 million is tied up in ongoing projects, according to the materials presented.
As part of the personnel funds requests, Baldwin asked for and received a vote to ask for a 10% stipend increase for coaches.
The increase, totaling about $31,000, was included into $191,400 of additional requested funds for personnel.
Baldwin advocated for the coaching stipend increase, saying it hasn’t been increased in a decade and that coaches now are essentially volunteering their time. Those stipends would go to the roughly 75 coaches employed in Macon County.
Board approves Higdon property MOU
The board unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding asking Macon County Board of Commissioners to use the Higdon property for school purposes.
The nearly 11-acre tract of land collectively known as the Higdon property sits across Wayah Street from the 20-acre Franklin High School property. The county commissioners voted on April 11 to allocate $1.35 million for the property, saying they will use the 60-day due diligence period prior to closing (which began on April 4) to determine potential uses of the property.
Board Attorney John Henning confirmed the MOU includes both tracts of land that comprises the nearly 11 acres, including the house. The property could be used for programs displaced by anticipated Phase One work on FHS, which would mean the football stadium and what’s immediately around it, including agricultural programs.
“It’s as straightforward and bare bones an MOU as I know how to write,” Henning said. “There’s no hiding any balls, there’s no cards up our sleeves, this is a straightforward way to say ‘thank you for acquiring the property, we’ll take it under these circumstances and work together to figure out how best to use it.’”
Henning said if the county agrees to use it for MCS purposes, it would likely be leased to MCS and eventually folded into the Franklin High School property across the street.
The approval came with one caveat for including small technical changes.
Wilkes asked Commissioner Gary Shields, who was in attendance for part of the meeting, if this would be on the agenda for the May 9 commissioners’ meeting. Shields said it was likely.
The next regular Board of Education meeting will be at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 22 at Nantahala School.