Jackson County Commissioners are considering moving forward with a $105 million bond referendum to fund capital projects for Jackson County Public Schools after a joint meeting with the Jackson County Board of Education last Thursday. 

At their June 24 meeting, Board of Education members approved a resolution to request Jackson County commissioners to issue the bond, which will address capital needs throughout the school district.

County Manager Kevin King said the county has been through several iterations of site plans for school system capital project thus far and that a public hearing will take place at the Aug. 4 commission meeting.

King is working on preparing the bond referendum for commissioners to review at their July 21 meeting, which will include finalized numbers on how the funds will be appropriated. Based on initial numbers, the $105 million will be appropriated for the following school system needs:

• $48 million to go toward funding a new middle school. This is intended to combine with the $52 million the state awarded to the county in grant funds to move the project, which has been stalled by budget issues, forward.

 • $23 million for Blue Ridge School for a new gym, new classrooms and a new kitchen and dining room addition.

• $34 million to go toward a new bus garage, renovations at the Smoky Mountain High School stadium and several renovation and repair projects in school facilities throughout the county.

Commissioners and school board members clashed at Thursday’s meeting over whether the county could afford the capital projects.

Commissioner Jenny Lynn Hooper said despite the $52 million already awarded to the county for the middle school project, with the project’s total costs rising to over $110 million, she did not support spending county money to make up that difference.

“I think we all want what’s best for our kids, and we want them to have the best thing possible, [like] everybody else’s kids, but it’s of my opinion that we ought to put this middle school project on hold and fix what we got,” she said at Thursday’s meeting.

School Board members disagreed.

“It don’t really make a lot of sense to say ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ to $52 million,” said Board member Wes Jamison. “The costs are only going to continue to increase down the road.”

School Board Member Kim Moore was adamant in insisting the money the board has requested with the bond resolution was desperately needed to support the next generation of learners.

Hooper erred on the side of austerity, suggesting repairing existing facilities like unused trailers at Fairview Elementary could provide a thrifty alternative to what the school board has requested in funding.

“Growing up in Cullowhee, we had two trailers, and we learned the same sitting in those trailers as we did sitting inside one of the classrooms in Cullowhee High School,” Hooper said.

Moore pushed back.

“I understand that because I grew up very poor,” she said. “I was coming in with dirty shoes. Everybody’s coming in with dirty shoes. But then, after a while, you start seeing everybody around you is getting new shoes and you still got dirty shoes.”

That disparity between neighboring school districts is damaging to children, Moore insisted, especially when other counties throughout the state are choosing to invest comparatively more money in their school systems.

“At the end of the day, if we throw all the money back, I just hope the kids of the county can look at this meeting and know I care enough,” Moore said. “You can raise my taxes. I’ll sign the referendum and all my kids have already been through school … I have nothing in the game other than I know that when I was a child and I moved into Rutherford County, my parents moved to a certain part of the county just so that I could go to Harris Elementary School. It opened its doors the year they moved there. My parents took a cross being burned in their yard to get me to the newest, nicest school in the county. I got the best education.”

North Carolina State Rep. Anna Ferguson (R-Swain) attended the meeting and said she did not anticipate the state would penalize the county if it chose to pause on moving forward with the middle school project, leaving the $52 million in limbo until it agreed on a funding plan. Even so, school board members do not want to wait.

However hesitantly, commissioners did agree to consider letting voters have a say in Jackson County Public School’s capital needs shortfalls.

“If we’re going to do this with a bond, let’s get everything we need instead of getting part of what we need and then raising taxes every year to get this need or that need taken care of,” said Commissioner Michael Jennings. “Let’s just do it and get them everything they need … If people vote against it, then we’ll have to do something different. But if we’re going to do it, you don’t want any kid left behind, right? Nobody does.”