My very first visit to the County Commission was 7 years ago on January 4, 2011. One of the topics being discussed was the historic “A” school building. My very first letter to the editor on January 11, 2011 observed how the county by paying the school board $2,000 per month was buying a building the taxpayers already owned.
Now at the January 4, 2018 meeting we received the building’s restoration cost history via several state grants and a federal grant, such as $331,000 in 2002 to restore the windows. Since 1999, we have spent over $3.8 million on the building. The gentlemen that made the presentation estimate it is around 40-50 percent complete, and they had no idea as to the total cost. They stated the cost was so high due to it being a historic restoration along with being paid for piecemeal. As one that has an old car, I liken this situation to restoring an antique car. It is very easy to far exceed the cost of a new car in doing so, especially using the “nickel and dime” method of repair- doing a little at a time. While the car may have sentimental value to the owner, it is not fiscally wise to spend a lot more than a modern replacement would cost. When the money being spent is not your own but instead is tax money, then this is even more critical. To put this expense in perspective, the plans mentioned at the meeting spoke of two floors of about 3,600 square feet each. Rounding this up to 4,000 square feet per floor and adding in another 4,000 square feet for a basement, I used a commercial cost estimator for a courthouse. The overall cost with overhead would be around $1.3 million.
In this case, the lesson the county should learn is the value of lump sum financing. Just as with the fire station, we cannot afford to pay out a lump sum, so our Chief wisely put away money each year until it was needed. For the “A” building, we could use revenue bonds- the same way we pay for road improvements. A bond needs a funding source, and we learned at the meeting the county brings in around $90,000 each year in ticket fines that are being used to pay for the restoration. We could obtain a bond for this major capital improvement and use this amount as the payment source with no tax increase. A tremendous benefit of not using grant money is that this also removes any costly and time consuming “strings” that invariably come with grants. It was clear to me at $3.8 million we are too far along to do this now, but it’s my hope the next major capital project will make use of this method.
Paul Henry