News
October 9, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
The county commission may be getting serious about funding construction of a new elementary school.
(Click link below to view plan)
During a joint meeting Tuesday night with the Board of Education and Director of Schools, the County Commission and County Mayor heard from Brian Templeton of Upland Design Group, the school board’s architect on plans to build a new 800 student Pre-K to 2nd grade elementary school to replace the existing Smithville Elementary complex. The construction would be on property adjacent to Northside Elementary School.
Templeton conducted a power point presentation showing a rendering of the proposed new school as well as the schematic design and floor plans. The commission had first been shown the plans in a joint meeting with the school board two years ago.
According to Templeton, the plans are exactly the same except for the cost. In September 2022 the projected cost to build this proposed 124,207 square foot facility was $46,199,875. Today, the projected cost is $53,414,825.
“We have seen that within construction, material costs have stabilized over the last little bit. We are not seeing the volatility that we were seeing two years ago but what we still see is that labor is really the thing that is hard to pin down,” said Templeton. “ In the costs, we have taken what we had previously and added some inflation. We’re targeting roughly around a $375 square foot value. I did make some calls a couple of weeks ago to contractors that had some recent projects, and they reaffirmed that to be a pretty good reasonable number to base an estimate upon,” said Templeton.
Still, the county commission may be poised to proceed with the project through the issuance of a 30-year bond using available local option sales tax funds and interest income on bond proceeds without an increase in the property tax rate if the four municipalities agree to extend their sales tax agreements with the county for the life of the bond. Under those agreements, which are set to expire in 13 years on July 16, 2037 the cities turn over to the county for schools a greater percentage of their local option sales tax collections than they would otherwise be required to do. That money goes into what is called the Local Purpose Tax Fund for Schools to help fund school operation and debt.
Some city leaders have apparently been reluctant to commit to an extension until the county gets serious about new school construction.
Commissioner Tom Chandler said his concern was that issuing a long-term bond to build one school might limit available funding for maintenance and future infrastructure needs at the other four schools.
Since this was only a workshop the county could take no vote on moving forward with the project, but the county budget committee will take up the issue soon and will need a commitment from the cities on extending those sales tax agreements.
“It seemed to be quite evident at this meeting that everybody on the county commission and school board thought that the new elementary school was in fact a good idea and definitely needed. We didn’t have any opposition tonight. We had full support for this project from the county commission, school board, the director of schools and myself,” said County Mayor Matt Adcock.
“We will send this back to the budget committee for them to review. Any time we deal with our debt service fund we always like to take that to our budget committee and let them review our debt forecast. We do believe with a sales tax agreement extension with the municipalities this will probably not need a property tax increase,” Adcock explained. “Through those sales tax collections we believe we could fund a new elementary school at the $53 million price tag if it’s a 30-year bond. A large step in this process now is going to be getting the municipalities including Alexandria, Liberty, Dowelltown, and Smithville to extend the sales tax agreements for at least the life of the bond. Right now our sales tax agreements with them will end on July 16, 2037. We will need to extend those agreements for up to 30 years from when that project begins for that bond,” said County Mayor Adcock.
Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said he likes what he heard from the county commission Tuesday night “It was a very productive meeting. I appreciate the county commission and County Mayor Adcock for having this meeting and allowing Upland Design Group to come and present our project and what we see as a need. This is exactly the same building we originally proposed. Nothing has changed except for the costs. Its gone up considerably but it is the same building. I really love the footprint and layout of it. I think the people of DeKalb County would be proud of it. I think it would be very efficient for our students and our teachers. It keeps everything under one roof and limits the foot space that students would have to travel from one place to another,” said Director Cripps.
The new project budget estimate according to Upland Design Group:
Building & Sitework: 124,207 square feet x $375: $46,577,675
Additional bus and car drives to connect the two schools-10,000 square yards: $650,000
Survey: $32,000
Additional Subsurface investigation: $10,000
Construction Testing: $200,000
Construction Contingency: $1,250,000
Architectural & Engineering Fees: $2,360,000
Fire Marshal Review Fee: $85,000
Loose Furniture/IT & AV Equipment: $2,250,000
Playground: Not Included
Total Estimated Project Cost: $53,414,625
Sixth District County Commissioners to Host Town Hall Meeting Saturday
October 9, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Sixth district county commissioners Andy Pack and Jeff Barnes will be joined by County Mayor Matt Adcock for a town hall meeting Saturday, October 12 at 5 p.m. at the Keltonburg Community Center.
Although the meeting is open to anyone in DeKalb County, Commissioners Pack and Barnes want to hear from the people of the sixth district on a variety of issues and concerns they may have including their views on how the county should address the jail/judicial center matter, a new school, zoning/county powers act, etc.
The forum will be an informal question and answer meeting.
County Commission and School Board to Renew Talks about New School Construction
October 8, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
For the first time in almost a year members of the county commission and board of education will meet together tonight (Tuesday, October 8) in an informal workshop to possibly jumpstart plans for new school construction. That meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the county complex.
Five years ago (2019), the first schematic site plans were developed for the Board of Education by architects of Upland Design Group to build a new Pre-K to 2nd grade school adjacent to Northside Elementary School and the following year (2020) the board purchased the property, a 24.5-acre site on North Congress Boulevard. The price paid was $18,000 per acre for a total of $441,000.
In October 2022, the site plan was updated and shown for the first time to the county commission in a joint meeting with the school board and architects. Another meeting was held between the board of education and county commission in November 2023 but no agreement came out of the session. The total estimated project cost at that time was $46,199,875. Today, it’s more than $53 million, according to updated cost projections.
In March 2024, the board of education rejected a request from the county to make a one-time contribution of $2 million from the school system’s ($10 million) fund balance reserves to help fund construction of the new school. Skeptical of the move, Director Patrick Cripps and the Board said taking $2 million from the school system’s fund balance or reserve account would be digging a little too deeply, especially at a time when the school district has other needs which require funding.
According to Upland Design Group, the proposed new Pre-K to 2nd grade Smithville Elementary School is 124,207 square feet in size and would be designed to accommodate 800 students with room for future expansion to house up to 300 additional students (1,100) total. The school would be built with 11 classrooms for each grade level of kindergarten, first, and second grade (33 classrooms for 20 students each) along with seven Pre-K classrooms for 20 students each plus four CDC/SPED classrooms as needed. The future expansion would accommodate 15 new classrooms at 20 students each. There would be 189 parking spaces on the campus.
The existing Smithville Elementary School, originally built in 1958, now is 70,557 square feet in size, and had an enrollment of 534 students in August 2024. As far back as 2017, a facilities study by Upland Design Group, concluded that the school, which has mold and other concerns, should be replaced and repurposed for other uses.
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