Commission Hears Building Plan

For the first time since the Loudon County Board of Education voted for the new building plan, the Loudon County Commission heard the details of the plan. Director of schools, Wayne Honeycutt, presented the plan to the commission including the estimated $47,000,000.00 price tag, an amount that many feel is extremely inflated. 

Commissioner Don Miller stated that his calculations show that it would require a nearly 25 cent property tax increase to fund the building program. Commissioner Austin Shaver on the other hand suggested that the board of education and the commission should determine what the county could afford in a building program that would require no tax increase.

The commission debated at length whether they would vote on the proposed plan at their next commission meeting in March or if they would wait till the 2009-2010 budget was prepared sometime in June. No firm decision was reached.

The board of education and the building plan are now on hold till the commission decides when they will vote. If the commission rejects the current plan, it would be up to the BOE to reconsider the current plan or attempt to get more realistic projections on the costs. 

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2/17/09