Grayson County BOS and Schools develop plan to pay for bleachers

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INDEPENDENCE (WSLS10) - The Grayson County School Board is currently looking at ways to pay for new bleachers.

This comes after the school board submitted the original budget for the upcoming school year, which did not include the cost of the bleachers.

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Grayson County School's Superintendent Kelly Wilmore said the bleachers are good investment because they could potentially be used to host functions like concerts during the summer.

Wilmore said in the short run, the bleachers could generate money for the local economy. He also said that bleachers cost about $370,000 and could hold about 1,300 people.

The previous bleachers were condemned late last year and torn down about two months ago.

He said, the bleachers were separate and not included in the original budget because the project manager submitted the cost about two weeks.

In the end, Wilmore said the bleachers are necessary to host functions like graduation.

"Bleachers aren't cheap, any bleacher project is going to need significant funding this is a bleacher project that we are very proud of and something that will last this community a long time," explained Wilmore.

Wilmore said the bleachers are expected to ready by late fall.

County administrator Jonathan Sweet said the Board of Supervisors agreed to pay for half of the costs, while the school system would have to pay for the rest and there are requirements.

Sweet said at Monday's meeting that the school board must come up with, and update annually, a 10-year capital improvement plan so the board of supervisors knows of issues at the schools in advance.

Also, the school board cannot ask for more money for unbudgeted items this school year.

The county treasurer will set up a fund for the schools to help play for improvements in case there's money left over from the budget.

"The board of supervisors had to sacrifice some of their projects in queue within their CIP to then employ that money for the bleacher project, so it was very deliberate, very difficult for the board to consider this request because of what they had to in essence cut," said Sweet.