Schools, City Council hold work session Monday: Bond issue to repair Dalton High sought

Published 8:04 pm Friday, February 20, 2015

Administrators with Dalton Public Schools are expected to ask the city for a bond issue to help fund extensive upgrades at Dalton High School that simply cannot wait, a school official said Friday.

School leaders will present the request to the Dalton Building Authority in a joint work session of the City Council and the Dalton Board of Education called for Monday at 4 p.m. at City Hall.

At Dalton High School, failing and ailing components of the building’s decades-old HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) system have made repairs “urgent,” school leaders say.

Other needed fixes — new fire doors, updated sprinkler systems, new floorcovering, new ceiling tiles, relighting, bathroom modernizations for handicap stalls, new lockers, new windows, lunchroom equipment and more — would best be made at the same time as the HVAC renovation, meaning Dalton Schools would need approximately $16 million within the year, officials said.

“All of that work is desperately needed over at Dalton High. It is worth about $16 million, altogether,” said Pat Holloway, director of communications for the district. “The project needs to be done.”

The Dalton Board of Education voted in January to reallocate about $16.65 million from the 2013 ESPLOST (Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) to fund the project, but the money will not be available for a couple of years.

So, the school district — which cannot incur debt — will need to obtain financing through a revenue bond, issued by the building authority, and pay back the funds when they’re available.

“The district has some real business they’d like to take care of in terms of bonding through the building authority, so it’ll be good to circle up and get everyone on the same page,” said City Administrator Ty Ross.

“Any actions that are needed would take place at a later date, and a bond may not go into effect until this summer,” he said. “But it’s good to have this meeting, in terms of planning.”

Other items on the agenda include a “Partnership” update, in which Holloway will highlight many of the ways the city and Dalton schools work together; a brief presentation concerning the proposed SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) set to be voted on March 17 — the Dalton board recently passed a resolution expressing its support for the tax; and a discussion about establishing a walkway that ties Brookwood Elementary directly to city-owned Lakeshore Park.

“Brookwood students, as part of their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) work, spend quite a bit of time at Lakeshore Park. Classes walk over there frequently to conduct experiments,” Holloway said. “They want to create a walkway, so kids don’t have to walk down the sidewalks or down the road.”

Said Ross: “We’re talking about acquiring some easements to make the sidewalk happen.”