State cuts could make county pay bus replacement costs
Polk County has decided to hold off running public water to Polk Central School after hearing from the school board that its first priority is keeping teachers and programming.
The Polk County School Board recently decided it would prefer funding from the county be used to ensure teachers and programming stay intact rather than to provide public water to Polk Central School immediately.
The school system is faced with upgrades to its well system at Polk Central to meet state requirements by July 1, at an estimated cost of between $30,000 and $40,000.
Polk commissioners have been discussing running water to the school in an effort to avoid the well upgrade costs to the school. The county’s first idea was to run a water line to Polk Central from the Peniel Road intersection off Hwy. 9, which was estimated at $656,000. Commissioners recently requested estimates on running a line from the Polk County Middle School to Polk Central in hopes it may be cheaper because the line would not have to be bored under Hwy. 74. The estimates for that line were presented during the county’s Monday, Feb. 21 meeting at approximately $420,000, according to estimates provided by county engineer Dave Odom.
“I would like to see you go ahead and fix your wells,” said commissioner Cindy Walker. “I’d prefer to wait until we get a little further with the budget. And I’d like to see about the state budget.”
Miller said the school system has no problem with that.
“We are much more interested in protecting programs and jobs than having public water,” said Polk County School Board Chairman Geoff Tennant. “It took our board approximately six minutes to come to a consensus (on that).
Commissioners Ted Owens and Tom Pack voted against having the school system fix its wells. Pack said his concern is that the school spends money out of their fund balance that could be used for something else, then the county later decides to run the water line and the school wasted that money.
The state budget is now proposing that costs for replacing school buses be transferred to counties. Polk County School Superintendent Bill Miller said one bus costs approximately $80,000, without insurance costs that the state might also transfer to counties. Miller said the school could probably hold off on purchasing new buses next year.
Polk County Schools has 27 school buses for taking students to and from school, not counting athletic buses.
State budget cuts are also causing the county to look at providing more funding for the school system beginning next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The school system has tentatively asked the county for an additional $300,000 next year to compensate for other state cuts in funding.