Taxpayers want their buildings back – “Why pay for buildings we already own?”

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

It should make for an interesting discussion, when representatives of the county meet with their school district counterparts to request that the latter transfer two of its buildings to the former, free of charges.
The two buildings that the attorneys for the Jefferson County Commission will try to get the Jefferson County School Board to donate are the historic A-Building and the Wacissa Fire Station.
Taxpayers can credit Monticello resident Clayton Tolbert for the idea. Tolbert – who has been conducting a relentless campaign with both city and county officials to get Jackson Street paved in the city – approached the Jefferson County Commission with the building transfer idea on Thursday evening, Dec. 5.
In his lengthy and sometimes argumentative presentation, Tolbert cited his extensive research into the issue, including talks with various officials and public record requests. Which research, he said, well documented that the county was paying the school board $2,000 monthly for the lease of the A-Building, not to mention making an initial $36,000 down payment and other payments.
His argument was that it made no sense for taxpayers to be paying leases for buildings that the taxpayers already owned by virtue of the buildings being a public properties, regardless what public entity was listed as the structures’ owner.
“We need to stop this madness,” Tolbert said more than once. “These are taxpayer-owned buildings and taxpayers need to take them back. Why keep paying for buildings that we already own?”
It was furthermore his argument that the school district was no longer struggling financially, as had been the case when county officials had initially negotiated the transfer of the building. And likewise for the Wacissa Fire Station, he said.
To show that the school district was no longer struggling financially, Tolbert cited public records showing that the district was either leasing, or planned to lease, the elementary school to a private organization for one dollar a year. Moreover, he said, the district was leasing 40 acres near the new high school for some $1,600 annually to a private citizen who was growing grains for profit; and it was contemplating leasing the old Howard Middle School buildings to another private organization for a dollar a year, notwithstanding that a second organization had offered thousands for the same facility.
Tolbert also was critical of the district for paying $24,000 annually for electricity at the school board building on West Washington Street, given that the building currently housed four school district employees. The district, he said, would do better to sell the building and house its handful of employees elsewhere. Possibly, he suggested, it could work out a deal with the county so that the few employees could be housed in the courthouse annex.
Tolbert made it clear that the request for the A-Building and Wacissa Fire Station were but a preliminary step. As time went on and he did more research, he planned to include more buildings in the asking, he said.
“My goal is to get the school board entirely out of the land-management business,” Tolbert said, positing a hypothetical scenario where Somerset, which currently receives most of the district's funding, and which he alleged was struggling financially, might attempt to sell other school district-owned buildings to raise needed money.
The commission agreed to Tolbert's request for the two buildings and expanded on the scope of the negotiations to include other district-owned buildings that the county was leasing, such as the library and the several buildings that make up the Water Street government complex. Not all the commissioners held high hopes for the negotiations, however.
Commissioner Stephen Fulford, for one, noted that he and former Clerk of Court Tim Sanders last year had approached the School Board with a similar request and had gotten nowhere.
“I wish you the best of luck,” Fulford told Tolbert.
Even so, the board voted unanimously to instruct County Attorneys Buck Bird and Scott Shirley to approach their counterpart on the school board and initiate negotiations for the several buildings.
Tolbert did not have success with his two other requests to the board, one having to do with the distribution of fuel tax monies and the second with the paving of Jackson Street. The two requests, although separate, were indirectly linked, by virtue of their aiming for the additional paving of city streets, and Jackson Street in particular.
As presented, the first request essentially entailed the city and county renegotiating the distribution of the 5th, 6th and 9th fuel taxes so that the city would get a greater share of the money than it currently receives. Tolbert's idea being that if the city received a greater share, it would pave and resurface more of its streets. In lieu of that, the second request asked that the county undertake the paving of Jackson Street, it being Tolbert's argument that city residents were also county residents and taxpayers.
The commissioners, however, rejected both requests, basically arguing that it was the city's responsibility to pave city streets and Jackson Street in particular; and that if the county received a greater portion of the fuel taxes, it was because its expenditures were greater.
The city also, county officials said, could better rank its priorities to include the paving of streets, or it could pledge the fuel tax monies to get a road-paving bond, the same as the county had done. That said, Commissioner J.T. Surles and Clerk of Court Kirk Reams agreed to meet with Tolbert and discuss the two issues further to determine if a mutually agreeable resolution could be found.