This week’s Rhino reports that the Guilford County Board of Education appears to be in the same state of confusion it was in months ago regarding the construction of Eastern Guilford High School.
The board decided to roll the dice and put Eastern on the proposed $440 million bond, but now they’re not sure the bond will even go on the ballot:
Some shool board members welled up with emotion at the Thursday, July 26 school board meeting because they said they just don’t trust county commissioners to fully fund the rebuilding of Eastern……
School board chairman Alan Duncan …said he does not trust county commissioners to put the school bond on the May ballot and said he believes that by delaying the bond, it is goiing to cost and additional $5 to $10 million in inflation….
School board member Jeff Belton said he doesn’t trust the county commissioners as far as I can pick them up and throw them.
There’s a great punchline:
Aside from not knowing where the money is going to come from to fund the construction of Eastern, the board voted in favor of hiring Barnhill Contracting Co. for $40.2 million to oversee theconstruction on the new high school.
So that tells me the board is confident the money will come from somewhere, even if they suck it up and pay for it themselves by shuffling some money. And, contrary to what the board and Superintendent Terry Grier say, they’ve got plenty of money shuffle.
But they still cry and point fingers at the county commissioners, who were set to pass COPs to pay for Eastern until that blogging animal Skip Alston decided to get tough with the school system, seemingly out of nowhere.
That said, both parties are now acting like they want to screw this up. Don’t be surprised if they do.