Wilkes Co. to get new $22 million high school complex
By KIP BURKE, news editor

It's official - Wilkes County is getting a new high school and middle school. "We'll break ground in June, and expect to move in to the new school in 2009," said Superintendent Joyce Williams.

Just a few months after going back to the drawing board on the long-planned high school/middle school complex construction, the Wilkes County Board of Education has approved the plan to go ahead and build a revised school complex at a cost of $22,261,165.

At a May 23 meeting, Board of Education Chairman Ricky Callaway and board members Bob Guin, Kay Finnell, Kelly Powell, and Steven Albertson, voted unanimously on Superintendent Joyce Williams' recommendation to go ahead with the school construction project to replace the leaky, worn-out 1957 facility on Gordon Street.

McKnight Construction of Augusta was low bidder on the project. McKnight is currently building the new McDuffie County Middle School in Thomson. The complex will cover 138,618 square feet on the Highway 17 campus. Williams says that she expects some local subcontractors to be employed at various stages in the 18-month construc- tion process.

The construction project had been put on hold last August when a final guaranteed price for the longplanned complex had come in at some $8 million more than the board had anticipated. Williams was unwilling to give up on the project, however, and "went back to the drawing board" to find ways to build the school for less money, and to squeeze more money out of the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues being collected to fund the construction.

After months of work with architects Southern A&E, bond company Merchant's Capital, former CFO Dean

Ware, and state BOE staff members, Williams was able to present the board with a proposal that will pay for TheNews- the school complex with SPLOST funds and a $5 million lease plan.

"There are still some funding issues to be worked out," Williams said. But if the lease agreement proposed by Merchant's Capital fails to win state approval, she said, a local banker has offered a low-interest line of credit to fund any shortfall.

The expected returns from the SPLOST have always been estimated very conservatively, Williams said, and projections show that revenues are increasing.

The new construction project should not raise millage rates, Williams said. "We don't foresee any need

to raise the millage rate for this construction project at all. The SPLOST is going to cover it." TheNews-

With contracts signed this week, Williams said that ground may be broken as early as June 13. The new schools should be complete by January 2009, she said, but moving over may be held until that summer.

This fall's rising tenth graders will be the first class to graduate from the new facility.

The plans for the new school complex are on display to the public at the Wilkes County Board of Education office on N. Alexander Avenue.

Just before voting to go ahead with the project, board members insisted on adding one option: air conditioning for the gym. "If we're going to spend $22 million on our new school, we've got to have air in the gym," Callaway said. "It's foolish not to."

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