Royston Mayor Calls for eSPLOST “Mayoral Summit” Thursday

The question of the next education special purpose local option sales tax will be the topic of discussion for a special mayors’ summit in Royston today/Thursday.

Current mayor David Jordan has called together several former mayors to discuss the e-SPLOST which is now on the ballot and will be decided March 1st.

Jordan and the Royston City Council worry the Franklin County School Board will relocate the new school outside the Royston City limits.

Thursday’s/today’s meeting according to Jordan will be to discuss the economic impact should the school board decide to relocate Royston Elementary outside the city limits.

“My concern is with this SPLOST coming up, if it’s voted in it could potentially lead to moving the school outside the city limits,” Jordan said. “We have property available and there’s no rationale to move it outside. This is a move that hasn’t been thought out and how it will impact the city of Royston as a whole. We need to think about how when these boards make decisions how it impacts the community at large and not just how it benefits a certain, select, small few.”

If this e-SPLOST passes, the Franklin County School Board will immediately begin work to build a Career Academy at Franklin County High School.

Then next year or the year after, they will take Carnesville Primary School offline, with a view towards integrating it with Carnesville Intermediate by 2021, according to School Superintendent Dr. Ruth O’Dell.

O’Dell says that move will release funding from the State Department of Education.

“When I say closed, I mean at first they’re taken off the footprint as far as the Department of Education is concerned,” O’Dell said. “We can still use the building, but as far as the DOE is concerned it’s been taken off their footprint. We have an arrangement with the DOE that they give you credit for need. What they allow you to do is to take the school off the footprint. From the moment you do that, then you can start earning this money from the DOE called ‘entitlement.’ But you only have five years to replace the building. So that’s why the strict timeline for how these decisions have to be made.”

O’Dell said in 2018, the school board will then begin hiring engineers and architects to conduct studies on the best location for the new Royston Elementary, which will be built with revenue from the 2021 e-SPLOST.

O’Dell says it is too soon to worry about where the new school will be built.

“This board of education is going to do this part of the planning and then we’ll see,” she said. “Towards the end of it (this eSPLOST) we’ll start getting architects in there, getting engineers in there; whatever we can afford to do out of this SPLOST we;ll start doing. But you would be predetermining what a new elected board will do. You’re talking about quite a few years before anything is going to happen.”

Today’s/Thursday’s meeting will be attended by former mayor’s Anderson Dilworth, Steve Williams and Bill Stewart.

The meeting will take place at noon at Royston City Hall.

It is open to the public.