School construction projects that had been jeopardized by a funding shortfall in DeKalb County will get built after all, officials said Monday night.
The projects were included in a five-year sales tax-funded construction program that expires this summer. No arrangement had been made to set aside money to cover $21 million in bond debt interest payments that were coming due in this third installment of the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson had proposed scuttling three dozen projects at scores of schools to cover that deficit and to pay for another problem: a $10 million overrun in projected costs for a new Chamblee High School.
But on Monday, Atkinson announced that officials had found a way to finish the work and that lawyers had signed off on it.
The school system will use $25 million from the next five-year sales tax program to do it. And none of the projects on that fourth sales tax building program will be sacrificed.
According to Stephen Wilkins, the district's new chief operating officer, the district will save $5 million on design fees by building seven elementary schools on the same template. Another $4.2 million will come from "contingencies" and other reductions. And school officials will "reallocate" $5 million from the program management budget.
The biggest savings will come from a new way of doing business, Wilkins said. The school system won't issue bonds to jump-start construction, unlike five years ago at the beginning of the third round of sales tax projects. That will save $11 million, Wilkins said.
"We're going to pay as we go," Wilkins said.
Atkinson said the entire list of threatened projects will get built, but not necessarily for the amount of money budgeted. In the past, if a project came in under budget, the project was expanded until the money was spent. This time, if a project comes in low, the money will be used on other projects, she said.
But each project will meet expectations, Atkinson said.
"We are going to complete the scopes as promised," she said.
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