At Thursday's school board meeting, board members heard from the architects for the school building program. They were reporting on the final construction costs for two of the three projects, the new middle school for Loudon and the cafeteria work for Philadelphia. Total estimated costs, 18 million give or take a little. That's slightly higher than the original estimates. The numbers for Greenback are due in the next month or so.

Board members voted to send the projects to commission for funding including the Greenback project as soon as those numbers come in. Not surprisingly Bill Marcus and Leroy Tate voted not to include the Greenback project.

Here's the problem. THE BOARD HAS ALREADY SPENT THE MONEY. That's right. Last month, the majority of the board voted to take a million dollars from the building fund to pay for raises and such knowing it would eliminate the building program. Now the board seems to be in a state of denial about the lack of money.

Pryor to spending the million dollars, the board would have had enough money to fund the building program but chose raises and other increases instead. Close estimates are that the county might now be able to borrow around 10 million dollars without a major property tax increase. Way short of what's needed.

So for now there will be no building program and not till commission raises property taxes, thirty to fifty cents, will there be a building program.