News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
With their first meeting days away, Putnam County Commissioners already have a large task at hand: how to move forward with the Park View School.
Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said the commission has several options to consider over the next couple of months.
“Does the commission want to do something now and issue more bonds to add the 5-8 or do they want to wait a few months or maybe even until the next spring or summer and see if the building prices come down and do it then,” Porter said.
Porter said the school system has decent capacity when it comes to grades five through eight, so funding that portion of the project is not as big of a rush. However, Porter said the county commission will have to do something in the near future.
“It’s kind of just on hold until the new commission comes in,” Porter said. “We lost about nine commissioners and we’ll have nine new ones start in September. I think there was a lot of feelings that they wanted the new commission to address it.”
Porter said the question remains on just how long do you wait considering building prices. Porter said he has heard a mixed bag of opinions with some people saying prices have peaked while others say they are still on the rise.
“It’s hard to predict what is going to happen,” Porter said. “But the K-4 is the part that they need right now. They are short of K-4 classrooms. We all know we need to do something with the 5-8 in the future, but is it now? That’s the question the commission is going to have to answer of the next couple months.”
The new school was to be a K-8 building. The upper grade wing of Park View School was removed from construction due to bids coming in over budget.
The county appropriated $44.6 million of a $98 million bond in July of last year to fund the school. But construction bids came in some $16 million over the projected costs.
