Commission Approves Step Forward on School Projects while Leaving Issues Unresolved
Also at Monday night's meeting: the Transylvania County Commission agreed to back Brevard's application for a federal grant to cover remaining construction costs of the Ecusta Trail.
BREVARD — The Transylvania County Commission unanimously backed sending a letter to the School Board meant to revive stalled progress on the voter-approved, $68-million school renovation project, though it also leaves major sticking points unresolved.
The letter took up a suggestion included in a similar letter the School Board sent to the Commission last month: forming an advisory group to identify both needed upgrades to schools throughout the district and all funding sources available to complete these improvements.
Group members will include a retired school board superintendent, a retired county manager and an experienced engineer or construction manager.
Commissioner David Guice, the strongest advocate on the Commission for approving the letter, praised the plan as providing experts to cast “fresh eyes” on the project, calling it “an excellent route.”
He also focused on the letter’s conclusion as a sign of the county’s sincere intentions. The Commission “believes strongly that working in tandem with your Board to chart a path forward will bring the best to our students and our citizens,” the letter ended.
“Whether this letter says exactly what the School Board requested or not . . . I think both parties are trying to find a way forward,” Guice said.
No, the message did not respond directly to the letter from school officials, several Board members said after the meeting.
While the county’s letter confirmed the support for the plan to renovate Brevard High School and Rosman High and Middle schools, as well as forming the advisory group, the Board had suggested that panel as an alternative if commissioners “reject the School Board’s August 2 request regarding moving forward with option 1.”
Option 1 is the dramatically scaled-back renovation plan the board approved last year when, in the face of rising construction costs, bids for the Rosman and Brevard renovations came in far higher than expected.
In August, with those costs continuing to rise, the Board backed what might be called option 1B. Board members agreed on the need for more cuts — and to pay the project’s architectural firm to amend the design accordingly.
The Board’s letter mentioned the need for a “limited contract amendment” to proceed with that work.
This caused Commissioner Larry Chapman to raise the obvious question: “Is the School Board saying we’re not ready or don’t want to move forward with option 1?”
Pretty much. Asked after the discussion if the Board still needed approval from the Commission to proceed with the amended option 1, Board Chair Tawny McCoy said, “that would be correct.”
Also unresolved: Stipulations the Commission attached to its June approval of option 1, including an assurance that the project wouldn’t cost any more than $68 million and an assertion that the county, which controls school funding, has provided adequate funds for “presently budgeted yearly maintenance.”
“None of those have been answered,” Commissioner Teresa McCall said of the stipulations.
After the meeting, Board Vice Chair Ron Kiviniemi — who said he was not speaking for the Board as a whole — repeated his previous statement based on research of financial documents, that the Commission’s funding of maintenance at the schools had fallen a total of more than $11 million short of the Board’s requests since 2005.
“I think the stipulation that they have provided adequate funds for the proper maintenance of the school system — I cannot agree to that,” said Kiviniemi, one of several members who attended the meeting.
Board member Kimsey Jackson added, “Speaking as one Board member, I can say that the letter was a nice way of saying, ‘We don’t like your stipulations.’ ”
The county included information about money available for school projects, including $6.2 million the county has been collecting annually since fiscal year 2020 in anticipation of financing the bonds for the Rosman and Brevard project. The total from this source amounted to $14.4 million at the end of last fiscal year, according to a memo prepared by county Finance Director Jonathan Griffin.
The county has paid about $3.3 million in architects’ fees from this fund and must reserve some of it for future commitments, including $6.2 million needed to issue bonds and ensure adequate cash flow when the work at Brevard and Rosman begins, Griffin wrote.
A table in the agenda packet included the total cost of projects — ones not part of the bond project — the Board has requested since 2020: $3.2 million, most of it for work that has not yet been completed. But the Board also sent a letter to the Commission this spring saying the the total amount of the district’s capital needs, not including the bond work, comes to about $35 million.
Guice pointed to the information Griffin provided as evidence off the county’s transparency in moving forward.
McCall sounded less hopeful given the backlog of work needed.
“At this point my perception is that if option 1 is still on the table, it’s on life support and dwindling fast,” she said.
Ecusta Trail Grant
In a separate action, a divided Commission voted Monday to support a city of Brevard application for a specialized, nearly $22 million grant that would provide the remainder of the total Ecusta Trail construction cost of about $53 million.
The federal Department of Transportation grants are available only to projects that provide access to “nationally significant and tribal lands,” according to Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof, who requested the resolution supporting the application.
The Ecusta qualifies because it is planned to connect to the city’s Estatoe Trail, which accesses Pisgah National Forest and, by way of US 276, the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The total funds available through the program are relatively small, at $125 million, but so is the pool of potential applicants, she said. The city is applying for the grant with several partners, including Henderson County and the city of Hendersonville, she said, and has money available from another grant to complete the design in Transylvania.
The city, which applied unsuccessfully for construction funds from another federal program earlier this year, has another key advantage in applying for money from this program, Copelof said: the amount of its match — more than $31 million, including $7 million in state funding and $15.5 million in federal funding previously awarded for the project in Henderson.
The grant requires applicants to identify at least a 10 percent match, she said. “The really amazing thing and the thing that is going to make this competitive — we are going with a 60 percent match.”
About $4 million from the grant would be devoted to finishing the 11-mile stretch of the trail in Henderson, with the remainder reserved for the eight miles planned for Transylvania, she said.
The Commission voted 3-2 to support the letter, with Commissioners McCall and Jake Dalton casting the “no” votes and citing, among other potential issues, concerns of residents who live near the trail.
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