Update Issue: October Surprise? Suddenly Commissioners Find Money

With the refusal of the Commissioners to consider the Hite Plan, Lee County High School is turning into a "pod"school for the next 20 years

1. 2. PM UPDATE By a unanimous vote the commissioners approved the POD's after being assured they had a 35 year life span. (What does that tell you?)
2. AM UPDATE By a unanimous vote, the finance committee of the commissioners approved $37,164 to employee Cary Reconstruction Co. Inc to remove all mold remediation in all designated rooms excluding the foreign language and art annex buildings. Funds will come from the counties general fund balance.
3. By a unanimous vote, the finance committee of the commissioners approved $656,300 to relocate students and staff from the foreign language building and art annex. The funds include $385,000 for the first of five years' " lease to own" of mobile classrooms (2 pods with 26 classrooms and rest room.) and $173,000 for asbestos removal and demolition of the current foreign language and art annex buildings and canopies. The balance of fund will go for technology and equipment that cannot be salvaged from the old buildings. There was little discussion of the "discovery" of the money for this expenditure for this "October Surprise. "With the control of Reives and Kelly the items are expected to be approved this afternoon..

This post was originally posted October 15, 2008

Election Prompts Action From Commissioners Action Comes After Friends of LCHS Endorse Other Candidates Editor's Note: If you are looking for the link to the County Capital Improvement Plan mentioned in today's Uncommon Sense column the link is in the top right column or you can click here. On October 4, Friends of Lee County High School began its endorsement of county commissioner candidates with this statement.

It is the commissioners that make financial decisions about county government! The citizens of Lee County are fortunate this year in having the opportunity to elect three-at-large candidates with the business prowess required of a commissioner. That is why we are supporting Herb Hincks, Richard Hayes and Larry “Doc” Oldham as commissioners.

Now, the Sanford Herald Headlines: "District Seeks Funding For LCHS", the county commissioners "find" $693,365 to meet the school's request," and Robert Reives finally schedules a finance committee meeting with members of the school board 187 days after the school board finance committee requested a joint meeting with Reives' committee. Do you think that the coming election in which many voters are upset with the commissioners over the handling of the renovations at Lee County High School and the commissioners' handling of the one-quarter percent sales tax has anything to do with this? Well it is the famous "October Surprise" to try to get voters to forget their last two years of ignoring the needs of Lee County High School. The buildings to be taken down at Lee County High School are the foreign language building and the art annex. They will be replaced with two mobile "pods" at a cost of $656,300. The Lee County School Board voted at its regular meeting last night to request an additional $37,164.74 from county commissioners to hire Cary Reconstruction Company, Inc. (click to learn about the company) for the mold remediation at LCHS. (click here to see previous post) The buildings were already scheduled to be demolished and replaced with pods next summer, but the commissioner's appropriation last June to the school's did not provide adequate money to meet that schedule. Better to save the money for an election surprise. According to a spokesman for the schools, the acceleration of the replacement is a logical move because of the cost of remediation of the molds and the repairs that would be necessary to help control mold in the future. "It just doesn't seem to be a good investment to spend what would be necessary to repair the two buildings when we already know they are coming down next summer." With funding by the commissioners now, the pods will be ready for occupancy when students return from Christmas break--Happy New Year from your incumbent commissioners! While from the school board's perspective, this may be a prudent move, it is not necessary to deal with the mold problem, so it is not a crisis. The Health Department report clearly said: "No Room or Building Needs To Be Closed Because of Health Hazards" (see post of report click here) However, the commissioners want to pull off their October surprise and suddenly demonstrate their concern for the health and safety of LCHS students. No one can blame the Board of Education for getting its needs met anyway it can, although few of them are supporting the incumbent commissioners. The commissioners, who in June claimed that they had budgeted all they could spend without falling below dangerous levels in their fund balance, have now suddenly discovered that they have the money to provide a larger appropriation to the school board than they did in this year's budget. The total of both requests is $656,300 which equals about one and a half cents in the property tax rate. It is amazing that this money turned up now--just weeks before the election. They had the chance (and money) to appropriate it to the schools in June but did not. Nor could they give the sheriff what he requested or meet other needs. And, if they were not going to spend it, why didn't they give a one time property tax rebate? Oh, they were just being careful in this difficult economy. The commissioners finance committee, which Robert Reives will not allow to be made public on the county website, will begin at 7:30 am on Monday to consider the matter and several members of the school board will be present. Does anyone think that the approaching election in 20 days has anything to do with changing the obstinate finance chairman's mind refusal to meet with school board members for 187 days, or 4488 hours, or 269,280 minutes, or 16,156,800 seconds. The County Manager has advised the commissioner that they can fund this request in the following manner: (1) $316,404 can be used from the Medicaid Hold Harmless funds which the county set aside in 2007-08 to make the ADM fund whole as part of the Medicaid “swap” with the State; (2) $25,000 which was made available to the county by an additional disbursement from the ABC Board; (3) $314,896 in unbudgeted/unused interest earnings from the 2004 Certificates of Participation issuance; and (4) $37,165 from the General Fund fund balance. The request follows priorities laid out by Dr. Lynn Smith after the mold problem was "discovered" but before the final report from the health department. (Click here to see post.) This lets incumbent commissioners like Jerry Lemmond and Ed Paschal claim that yes they are indeed concerned about Lee County High School. One can just imagine the mailer now! The problem with trying October Surprises with the public is that the voters are usually smarter than the Commissioner's think, and the October Surprise explodes in their own faces. .