Pope School construction gets committee approval
Members of the Madison County Commission had been waiting for months since Jackson-Madison County Schools Superintendent Marlon King was given the green light from the school board to present a plan and funding request for a new Pope School in October.
King made that presentation Tuesday morning during the financial management committee meeting, armed with a five-component presentation complete with options for saving money in the project and letters of support from Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris and Jackson Mayor Scott Conger.
The presentation presented four options for the school, and Harris, who’s a member of the committee along with King, made the motion to go with the option for 1,250 students that has a projected cost of $48 million.
Commissioner Joey Hale, another committee member, expressed multiple times in the meeting the desire to go ahead and budget $50 million to give the project a cushion of $2 million to purchase furniture, technology and take care of any unforeseen expenses with the project.
Harris asked King about the possibility of a high school as part of the project. King said he’s open to talking about it before adding that if a high school component isn’t part of the project, “we’ll be back here sooner or later discussing a high school, probably sooner.”
The full motion from Harris was to recommend to the full commission to proceed with the 1,250-student option with a planned special-called meeting on Feb. 24 to discuss the issue of paying for the project after the budget committee meets on Feb. 15 and will discuss the matter.
Budget committee chairman Doug Stephenson was also at the meeting. He, Hale, King and finance manager Karen Bell mentioned the burden of paying for the school and borrowing money for it. Ideas mentioned including using American Rescue Plan Act funding, of which the county has a little more than $17 million available, to cut down on the expense, 10- and 15-year bond issues and moving more pennies from tax revenue toward debt service.
While the commission is charged with figuring out how to pay for it, King said after the meeting he’s confident in the support from the commission and looks forward to seeing the project progress.
“This is a project that’s at least 30 years in the making, and to be the superintendent that hopefully closes the deal is exciting to me,” King said. “But just to get this done because of the growth that is happening in that part of the county and is expected to happen in the coming years, this is necessary.”
Reach Brandon Shields at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at 731-425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at editorbrandon.
This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Pope School construction gets committee approval
