The Cobb County Board of Education will talk about its five-year Local Facilities Plan (LFP) tonight at 7 during new first full board meeting at the Central Office, 514 Glover St.
SPLOST Chief Administrative Officer Doug Shepard said the LFP is a formal step the Georgia Department of Education requires to start the yearlong development process to ensure school systems are addressing their growth needs in a systematic way.
The current plan expires June 30, 2012. The new plan will start July 1, 2012, and end June 30, 2017.
“The new LFP will document the current facility inventory and capacity, projected enrollment growth and cost of needed renovations, additions and/or new schools,” Shepard said. “In the past, the LFP has served as the primary building block of a needs assessment used to evaluate if a capital campaign, such as a bond or SPLOST referendum, was required. We expect the current plan will give us similar insight.”
Shepard said the current five-year plan detailed more than $319 million in needs that are being addressed by the current special-purpose local-option sales tax (SPLOST).
The Local Facilities Plan, Shepard said, covers only specific categories of renovations and modifications that are eligible for state aid through the state Department of Education’s Capital Outlay program.
Chairwoman Alison Bartlett of Post 7, including , and elementary schools, said predicting the needs for the LFP won’t be easy in this economy. “The economy makes it much more difficult for future projections, and our SPLOST can show where we sometimes make errors in our projections.”
In addition to the Local Facilities Plan, the Board of Education also will discuss:
- Restoring project budgets for nonconstruction SPLOST III projects, such as replacing obsolete computer workstations for a revised budget of $23 million and purchasing additional foreign language instructional materials for a revised budget of $36.7 million. As of July 5, construction projects have returned $15.4 million to the SPLOST III fund contingency as a result construction market savings.
- Purchasing 17 vehicles for the district’s maintenance and operations fleet for $529,533 and 11 vehicles for the Transportation Department for $251,812. SPLOST III funds will cover both purchases from low bidder Wade Ford of Smyrna.
- Awarding a contract for an addition and modifications to the Argo Road Maintenance Facility for $929,600 to low bidder Garrard Construction Group of Duluth.
Along with voting to dispose of excess furnishings and equipment, the other consent item before the board is granting an easement to Georgia Power for relocating a power pole at Kennesaw Elementary.
The board also will take note of the National Association for Music Merchants Foundation's choice of Cobb County as one of the 2011 Best Communities for Music Education.
