Video: Lowndes School Board Debates Future Bond Issue

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LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) — Voters in the Lowndes County school district likely will go to the polls sometime in March to decide again on a major school construction bond issue.

School leaders have not yet decided for how much and what projects remains undecided after board members heard more than an hour of updates from an architect and financial consultant Friday.

While the board voted 3-2 to have another referendum in March, the debate exposed rifts among members who want to pay for a new school in New Hope, a career training center and other renovations with bonds now and others who want to pay as they go over 10 years.

A list of projects will be decided in the coming weeks. An August referendum drew only 10% of voters and while a majority supported a $47 million bond issue, it did not receive the 60% necessary for passage.

Architect Joey Henderson, who has been guiding the board through its long-range building plans for more than two years, said the board has some options, including submitting the $47 million issue again virtually unchanged or considering two smaller issues, one for $45 million and another $40 million.

Some of the projects removed from the $47 million could be funded in 2016 with a 3 mill note when the current 3 mill notes from 2013 and 1014, which have the district at its maximum capacity for those types of funding, are paid off. The county’s bond capacity and financing also will improve starting Oct. 1, 2015 when Severstal Steel’s fee-in-lieu agreement ends and the steel maker starts paying full property taxes. That will raise the value generated by a mill from $331,000 to an estimated $478,000. Other growth in the county could push that even higher, meaning the school district will generate almost 50% more tax revenue with the same tax rate.