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State awards city schools $6 million
Nov 4 2009 12:00AM By Carly Omenhiser Sun Staff Writer
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Enterprise City Schools will soon have a financial boost after it receives a $6 million allocation from the Alabama Department of Education.
The allocation comes from $236 million of interest-free Qualified School Construction Bonds program that was created in the wake of the federal stimulus law passed by Congress earlier this year.
School systems in need of extra financing for repairs, renovations and construction are eligible for the interest-free bonds.
Enterprise City Schools will use the $6 million allocation for the construction of the new high school.
The bond will significantly help reduce the amount needed by the Enterprise School System to cover the $9-to-$10 million shortfall for the schools construction.
“This will really help us out as we finish construction on the high school and we’re grateful,” said Enterprise City Schools Superintendent Dr. Jim Reese.
All 46 schools that applied for the federal funds received some amount, which the state determined after considering each system’s ability to repay the bonds, the percentage of students who eat free or reduced lunches and per-pupil expenditures from local funding sources.
“Modern and safe schools will help better prepare our students for the future,” said Gov. Bob Riley.
“With these bonds, systems can repair, renovate and construct much-needed schools while also stimulating our economy.”
State Superintendent of Education Dr. Joe Morton said, “The ability of the state to sell bonds for all school systems at once was brought about by a bill adopted in the special session of the Legislature earlier this year. It gets the money to the systems quicker and at less cost than all 46 systems trying to individually do this - it’s a win-win situation for Alabama.”
The Qualified School Construction Bond program provides tax credits to bondholders, as opposed to tax-exempt interest, which allows the bonds to be offered with no interest.
Construction Update
Due to the amount of rain the area has experienced in the past few months, Enterprise City Schools administrative assistant Bob Tomerblin expressed his concerns about the projects deadline.
“I’m beginning to get concerned about the rain,” said Tomberlin.
During the Oct. 28 meeting of the Enterprise City School board meeting, Tomberlin said, “if we continue to have rain like this, I could see it becoming a problem.”
With the high school over 50-percent complete, construction crews are busy getting the building “dried in.”
According to Tomberlin, getting the windows and doors in place is key to speeding up the process.
Once the building is completely closed in, rainfall will be less of a problem for the 375 to 400 workers on site each day.
Tomberlin said architects are showing a little concern as well, as they have said the project should be 10 percent further done.
School officials are meeting with contractors every two weeks for the remaining eight months of construction on the school.
“We’re getting down to crunch time,” said Tomberlin.
Tomberlin said he thinks school officials will know by Christmas whether the school will be finished by the June 2010 completion date.
Contractors remain confident that the school will be finished in time to have the school furnished and ready for the 2010-2011 school year.
©Southeast Sun 2009
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