Local school districts spend capital grants on construction projects

Dec. 2—A bill sponsored by a Decatur lawmaker and signed into law this year will provide more than $7 million to area schools, grants that are being used by Decatur City Schools to help fund a consolidated pre-kindergarten facility and by other systems to replace roofs and tackle other capital projects.

Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, sponsored the 2023 bill to address capital needs of K-12 schools. School districts could apply for one-time funding for construction, debt service, deferred maintenance, school security and technology needs. Statewide, more than 300 K-12 schools were awarded $179 million in grants.

Orr said he spoke with Decatur City Schools Superintendent Michael Douglas this year about the pre-K center the school is building on Fourth Street Southwest, off Memorial Drive and next to West Decatur Elementary. Currently, there are 18 pre-K programs across the city, but the pre-K center will consolidate all those programs into one facility.

"The way Decatur applied, they applied for each elementary school because students will come from every elementary school to go to this combined pre-K center," Orr said.

Walter Jackson Elementary received a grant of $500,000 and Oak Park Elementary received a grant of $350,000 while eight other DCS elementary schools each received $300,000.

"All those $300,000 awards will roll up into the larger award for the pre-K center," Orr said.

Construction on the center began last month and Douglas, who was unavailable for comment this week, said in July that he estimated the cost of construction to be around $14 million.

According to the office of Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, grants were provided to 327 schools in 137 school districts.

Hartselle City Schools received a $1,250,000 grant to go toward replacing the north portion of the roof of Hartselle Junior High School. Superintendent Brian Clayton said bids for the roofing project went out this spring.

"To be honest with you, it came in so high we couldn't do anything about it," Clayton said. "We thought we would be able to address it locally, but we couldn't. We're very grateful for this grant money."

Clayton said the bid was about the same as the grant award.

"So that should cover most of (the construction)," Clayton said.

Morgan County Schools will replace the roof on Brewer High School with its grant of $713,211. Superintendent Tracie Turrentine said the high school is 50 years old and no major renovations have taken place since then.

"This grant money really puts us ahead a few years of getting that roof replaced," Turrentine said.

With the money her district will save, Turrentine said they now have more money in their general fund to replace the HVAC systems at Union Hill and Danville-Neal Elementary schools.

Both Lawrence and Limestone County school districts received grants for their career technical centers; Lawrence County received $500,000 and Limestone County received $750,000.

"That money will go toward the expansion we've been working on," said Lawrence County Superintendent Jon Bret Smith. "We have already received a $1 million ADECA grant and so we're going to put this with it. We'll be able to add more equipment (to career tech) and just make it a nicer facility."

Limestone County Superintendent Randy Shearouse said they will spend their grant on adding more classrooms to their career technical center.

"We also want to renovate the facility since it was built in the '70s," Shearouse said. "We had budgeted the money for the project but applied for those (capital) funds as well."

Athens City Schools received a $250,000 capital grant, which they will use to construct a new Julian Newman Elementary School. Superintendent Beth Patton said the new school will house over 700 students.

"Every little bit helps with this nearly $30 million dollar project," Patton said.

Morgan County school board member John Holley said construction costs have risen over the last five years and receiving the grant money this year makes projects like these more affordable.

Orr sponsored a bill in 2020 that issued a $1.25 billion Public School and College Authority bond issue for schools' capital improvement projects.

"That was when rates were lower, but by the time some of them got to the construction component, the cost had exploded and we were receiving a lot of requests for additional help," Orr said. "That's where we came up with this program to help some of those school systems finish projects who were wanting to use that earlier bond issue."

— wes.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442.