BOE Forming Building Authority To Finance Projects

The Stephens County School System is moving forward with efforts to set up plans for making some roof repairs at Stephens County High School.

On Tuesday, the Board of Education unanimously voted to re-establish the Stephens County Schools Building Authority and appoint three school board members, Tony Crunkleton, Jim Bellamy, and Rodney Moore, to serve on that authority.

Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey said that the building authority is a vehicle that the school system can use to obtain long-term funding for building and maintenance work in the school system.

Dorsey said the authority does that by allowing the school system to take on longer-term bond debt.

“That building authority will let us use a long-term finance vehicle instead of a TAN (Tax Anticipation Note), which has to be paid back in one year,” said Dorsey. “One of the other things that the Building Authority allows the school system to do is when we can postpone this, is E-SPLOST dollars, should our kind citizens be willing to approve E-SPLOST, rather than having these funds come out of general fund, we will be able to put those debt services back on E-SPLOST.”

According to Dorsey, a school board cannot take out general fund bond debt, but can do so by using a Building Authority.

Furthermore, Dorsey said while E-SPLOST cannot be used to reimburse the general fund, it can be used to pay off a Building Authority debt.

He said that means the school board can fund the project out of general fund to get it started, then take out bond debt to pay back the general fund and use E-SPLOST, if approved, to pay back the bond debt.

The school system wants to use the Building Authority to obtain funding to first fix the roof in areas at Stephens County High School.

Dorsey said there are five areas of the roof that he feels need immediate attention, mostly dealing with the older parts of the campus.

Dorsey said that project should cost about $1.4 million or so.

However, Dorsey said he is proposing that the Building Authority borrow up to $4 million in all.

“That would certainly give us an opportunity to deal with some of our heating and cooling needs, our roofing needs, and just some equipment we need to maintain our facilities,” said Dorsey.

Also, Dorsey said a $4 million total would be a debt that he feels the school system is in position to cover even if E-SPLOST were to not pass.

He said the general fund could cover it if need be, though that is not the system’s preference.

Dorsey said the next step is to have a called meeting to organize the Building Authority and also have the Board of Education pass a resolution authorizing the Building Authority to take out the debt on behalf of the school board and setting up what parameters the Building Authority must work under.

After that, the Building Authority could move forward with getting proposals for funding options.

Those initial meetings could be called for as soon as the start of next week.