The Lakeland School Board (LSB) met for a special session tonight at City Hall and among agenda items was approval on an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the City of Lakeland to assist with debt service for the first high school to be built in Lakeland.
Eric Plumley, LSB attorney, explained the document is an agreement between the City and the Lakeland School System (LSS) to assist the City with debt service for the high school. It addresses four $700,000 payments, he said, and obligations of the City to secure financing of no less than $40 million and give it to LSS in a lump sum by the end of the year.
Mr. Plumley added the fourth and final payment will be made in 2022 and the agreement will end.
Board Member Deborah Thomas asked would there be two payments in 2020. Dr. Ted Horrell, LSS superintendent, said there will be payments in January and July which will equal $1.4 million or half of the $2.8 million total. He noted that although both payments will be made in calendar year 2020, they will occur in two different fiscal years. The last two payments will be made in 2021 and 2022.
LSB Chair Kevin Floyd said the School Board didn’t anticipate the January payment. Dr. Horrell answered that the City requested the January payment which means the money will be paid to the City in 3 ½ rather than 4 years.
Board Member Jeremy Burnett thanked everyone for getting the high school construction project to this point. He said the push to build the school and have a complete K-12 system started in 2014.
The grades 9-12 school wing and other facilities for high school students is to be built on the existing Lakeland Middle Preparatory School (LMPS) campus and open to students in August 2022. Currently high school students from Lakeland attend Arlington High School through an interlocal between the two cities.
Link to agenda: https://lakelandk12.org/res/web/11.19.19%20SC/11.19.19%20Special%20Called%20Meeting%20Agenda.pdf
Link to Livestream: https://livestream.com/lakeland/events/8901627
Other business of the evening
- October business meeting minutes were approved.
- The Board approved an architectural contract with Renaissance Group. Dr. Horrell said the contract has been in the works for quite some time. When delivered to Renaissance, Mike Terry, senior vice president and partner, said it was the largest architectural contract he had ever been issued. Dr. Horrell said there were a lot of requirements because the school funding is coming through USDA. Chairman Floyd said the approval officially hires Renaissance to be the architect, noting the Lakeland company was also involved in the middle school build project.
- There were two categories of amendments to the Fiscal Year 19-20 budget: The System’s nutritional budget and the capital projects budget. Dr. Horrell said the state nutrition department said LSS has to spend down some of the fund balance in that category, about $84,000. It will be moved to some capital needs and help with staffing, said Dr. Horrell. For the capital projects budget, that $961,045 is from the Shelby County Commission, said Dr. Horrell. It will be put in a building construction fund.
- The 2019 LEA Compliance Report was approved, an annual requirement.
- The final item was to approve tenure for two Lakeland Elementary School teachers, among the first to start when LSS was formed five years ago. They are Arzu Booth and Teri Hoffman. Dr. Horrell said they met the requirements of being with the System five years and making fours and fives on their evaluations. “They are 100% LSS-tenured teachers,” he said.
… Photo by Jim Willis, Lakeland Currents
