Commission approves $260 million bond to tackle school, wastewater projects

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- The Hamilton County Commission voted today on a $260 million dollar bond that would mostly go towards constructing or renovating several schools across the county.

While the Commission did approve that resolution, some questions still remained.

$250 million dollars of this bond approved Wednesday morning is planned to fund new projects at sites like DuPont Elementary, Brainerd High, and Soddy-Daisy Middle among several others.

However, some commissioners were wondering if this will be enough to truly cover the costs of all future school projects.

For example, County Finance Director Lee Brouner said today the Tyner Academy project, still under construction, was initially slated to cost $76 million dollars.

However, that cost has jumped to nearly $100 million dollars.

Brouner added that for future projects, “Yeah, if the world works the way it has for the last 100 years, yes there’s going to be additional costs to it.”

He said that the bonds related to the school construction are likely to be scheduled to be paid off over the next 20 years, although the county has paid these kind of bonds in a 15 year period in the past.

Commissioner David Sharpe said he believes a potential estimate of interest payments could be well over $100 million dollars.

“That’s a tough pill to swallow I think for a lot of folks, and I’m going to support this resolution if this is the only way we can move forward. We need to address these projects,” he said.

Some wondered if the large cost will ultimately be worth it.

Commissioner Warren Mackey said, “Taxpayers are going to have pay money that if we did our jobs, they wouldn’t have to pay… Bandaid. Call it what you want, we are not doing our jobs.”

It is up to the Hamilton County School Board to determine when individual projects can begin.

Meanwhile, the other ten million dollars of that bond is going to the Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority.

The WWTA says they were officially put under a consent decree from a federal judge last month, which means they have to upgrade their sewage infrastructure.

The EPA had found the agency had violated the Clean Water Act last year as some of their discharges had overflowed into local waterways.

While the $10 million is going to projects in Ooltewah and Soddy-Daisy, some discussion was had on if a brand new wastewater plant, which has been rejected in the past, would be the best way forward.

“If we keep kicking this thing down the road, that $50 million dollars that it would cost today would cost $100 million later. It’s a matter of pay me now, pay me later,” said Commissioner Greg Beck.

The WWTA says that they do plan to pay back their $10 million of the bond to county government.