School Board Input Meeting Tonight

UPDATE: Lola Alapo of the Knoxville News-Sentinel has the following story in todays paper. So much for cooperation among School Board and the funding body. When a headline to a story appears in the paper and refers to a School Board Member and their meeting as critical. A critic of the County Mayor and County Commission that fully funded the past 4 years of Capital Plan budget request, this years General Puropse Budget and gave $40 million dollars for a new high school that the School Board never requested. Yet, the critic can not make any budget balance. Instead of the $40 million that is over and above the Capital Plan request, they build a $50 million dollar school. The Mayor and Commission have not criticized the School Board, because it serves no purpose to point fingers at one another and become critic’s.

This evening, Fifth District School Board Member held a Community Meeting at Bearden High School. The Brian’s Blog staff was attending the City Council Workshop on the Sunsphere re development, Parent Night at a Fifth District School and a Brian’s Blog kids soccer practice. Never fear, there was a Correspondent on the ground and in the meeting at Bearden High School that filed the following notes. (By the way, West Valley Middle School had Parent Night, Lotts had Girl Scout sign-up and Bluegrass had a parent type meeting as well. This was a terrible night to get Parental Input from the Fifth District, if that is what they wanted.)

School Board Member Cindy Buttry along with School Board Member-Elect Thomas Deakins attended as well as about 20 other people. The statement was made that the School Board was convinced that if they build the new school for a capacity of 1300 the goal of relieving overcrowding would not be achieved. The school board will be making a formal request that the Knox County Commission appropriate an additional $6.0 million dollars to finish the high school for 2000 students. The School Board has reviewed the project and is asking for what they think they need for the new high school.

Current funding for the school is :

Knox County $40,000,000
Knox County Schools HVAC $4,000,000
Totaling $44,000,000

The cost for the current scope of work for 2100 student capacity school is as follows:

Land $2,650,000
Design $2,500,000
Construction $38,500,000
FF&E $4,500,000
Administration $1,300,000
Contingency $550,000

Total $50,000,000

The Knox County Commission meeting is on Monday August 28, 2006 at 2:00 pm.

The Fifth District School Board Member stated that in October and November she will begin to discuss and talk about potential zoning changes for the new high school and that it was her opinion that 600 students may need to come out of Farragut to accomplish a solution to the overcrowding issue.

Brian’s Blog editorial opinion here. So, this school has been said to be $6.0 million dollars “under funded”, Brian’s Blog has reported a $6.0 million dollar budget cost over run. Until our Correspondent reported back this evening and in the report reminded Brian’s Blog of the $4.0 million dollar Geo-thermal HVAC system that the school system is paying for, it is now a $10.0 million dollar budget cost overrun.

Brian’s Blog will continue in the words of Fox News to “We Report, You Decide.” “Fair and Balanced”

Stay Tuned.