THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050488
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOYOCK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Currituck County commissioners agreed Thursday to accept $5.2 million in state funds for school construction, an amount that's millions short of projected costs.
The money from the state Commission on School Facilities Needs will be used to improve Central Elementary School and buy property and build a new primary school in the Moyock area, but the county may have to cover $2.9 million for the projects.
During a joint meeting with the Board of Education on Thursday morning in Moyock, the Board of Commissioners decided to use $1.6 million of the grant money for renovations and additions to Central.
The plans for Central Elementary School would be scaled back by $700,000. The improvements will include three new classrooms and a media center; $124,855 in furnishings and equipment; $120,370 in architectural fees; and, possibly, entrance canopies, bleachers, new ceilings and an upgraded bus loop.
The plan now includes fewer new classrooms.
Even with the scaled-back plans for Central, the $3.6 million left from the state grant won't pay for Moyock's new elementary school, projected to cost $6.5 million.
County Finance Director Dan Scanlon reviewed ways to make up the $2.9 million difference without raising taxes.
Some of that money may come from the remainder of $19.4 million budgeted a couple of years ago to finance several school building projects. The bulk of it is instead being absorbed by the new high school under construction.
That money, including $16 million in school construction bonds, was, among other things, to pay for a new primary school in Jarvisburg.
Because of the rapid growth in the northern end of the county, school construction priorities have been shifted to the Moyock area.
Another possible income source is the proceeds of the county's land-transfer tax on new residential developments, Scanlon said.
One development in particular, The Plantations, is expected to generate almost an entire school's worth of elementary-age children when completed.
Commissioners tried to thwart the project by rejecting the developers' application. Last week, however, a judge ordered the decision be reversed. The county is appealing.
A third possibility to meet the shortfall is to scale back the Moyock project.
``I think we can try to build to the dollars that we're going to have available,'' County Manager Bill Richardson said.
Commissioner Gene Gregory questioned the design of the Moyock elementary school. A duplicate building is eventually expected in the southern end of the county.
Gregory called on chief architect C. Michael Ross to design ``a simple, plain, workable school in this county.''
``Nobody in this country today is building fancy schools except Currituck County,'' Gregory said.
Ross said the design was drafted before a 1993 bond referendum, and he had not been authorized to replace it yet.
Once the $5.2 million in state grants is formally accepted at the next commissioners meeting Jan. 16, the boards will have two years to begin all the projects.
The Central renovations are expected to be done by the fall of 1997. by CNB