Budget Committee Pushing To Fund School

The DeKalb County Commission Budget Committee has recommended a 30-year bond resolution not to exceed $55 million for a new elementary school.

Committee Member Mathias Anderson said their plan is to finance the project by extending the county’s sales tax agreement with the local municipalities. Anderson said he is worried they will not be able to afford a school if they do not take action soon.

“The estimate was $48 million back in October of ’23 and today’s cost is $52 million,” Anderson said. “So something that I just really, really harped on to the commissioners was inflation is, it’s here. Costs are not going to go down. Best case they just don’t go up as fast.”

Committee Member Tony Culwell said they will have to get approval from Smithville, Alexandria, Liberty, and Dowelltown before moving forward. Culwell said the time has come to do something to support the large amount of growth the county is seeing.

“So we’re trying to get it started and have it set at this 55 bond rate,” Culwell said. “And even though we can also pay this off earlier and not be fined and stuff after I think (Financial Advisor Steve Bates) said it was after ten or fifteen years.”

Culwell said the construction a new school has been a point of discussion among county officials since at least 2016.

“It’s just one of those things where it gets kicked down, a can gets kicked down the road,” Culwell said.

Culwell said they set the bond at $55 million to account for any additional inflation as the project gets underway.

Anderson said all of the cities and towns should give their approval in time for the county to vote on final approval in January.

“I think that after we had met last month to discuss it all, just to show hey, there’s a plan, the land’s been purchased, the traffic study’s been done, they’ve got a construction estimate, I think that everyone is now going to see like, hey there is a plan, the school’s ready to be built, and it would make sense to extend that tax agreement so we can go ahead and get started.”

Anderson said the original sales tax agreement dates back to the 1970s and declares that the municipalities will give sixty-six percent of their local option sales tax revenue towards local schools instead of the state-required fifty percent.

“I believe right now there’s either thirteen or seventeen years left,” Anderson said. “But we need to have an extension to that agreement to last the full thirty years to support a thirty-year bond.”