Charter school project gets county OK
By Steve Herring
Published in News on March 5, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners Tuesday morning without discussion unanimously endorsed the issuance of up to $50 million in charter school revenue bonds for charter schools in Wayne and Mecklenburg counties.
And Bob Jackson, who said he had just returned to the county from working on the Mecklenburg County school, was the only person who spoke during a brief public hearing on the bonds.
The $50 million will be evenly split between Wayne Preparatory Academy at 1404 Patetown Road and Thunderbird Preparatory Academy in Cornelius.
The bonds will be used to finance the "acquisition, construction, reconstruction, renovation, equipping, and/or any other capital expenditures and related expenses, as applicable, of charter school educational facilities" at the two locations.
The bonds will be issued by the state of Wisconsin Public Finance Authority to Vertex Nonprofit Organization, a Utah-based not-for-profit corporation.
Vertex will build and lease the schools back to each local charter school organization.
"Essentially it is an IRS requirement that you have to approve these," County Manager George Wood said. "But I want to stress that this is not an obligation on Wayne County. So if the bonds are not repaid, it does not fall back on the taxpayers of Wayne County."
Jackson told the board he had had the "privilege" of being involved with the Mecklenburg County school as a general contractor.
"We recently completed that project," he said. "It was quite extensive, 36,000 square feet. It had been a church in former years. We had to tear it all apart and put it back together.
"I was also involved in the Wayne Prep project as some of you know upfront in putting that together. I believe there is a place for charter schools in our state. There are some that haven't done so well, but normally that can be traced back to management."
Commissioner Joe Daughtery's motion to proceed with the bond issuance was unanimously approved.
The entire process took about three and a half minutes.
Jackson returned to the podium during the public comments portion of the meeting saying that he had not said all that he had planned to during the public hearing.
Wayne Preparatory Academy on Tommy's Road is currently housed in modular units, he said.
"That's pretty standard with charter schools to get you started because of the lack of funds to do it otherwise," he said. "It is our hope that within the next 12 months that we will start some permanent buildings on that 53 acres at the corner of Tommy's Road and (N.C.) 111 (Patetown Road).
"It is the plan within a few short years to have that K through 12 with all permanent buildings including gyms and tracks and the whole thing. I am confident that we can do this. With the monies that will be available, we will be able to make the payments on the bonds without any problem. We have plans for other schools in the Charlotte area also."
Jackson said he does not think it is the job of government to create jobs. Rather, government's role is to create an environment to "entice" business to come into the county, he said.
Two main things that a business looks at are schools and tax rates, Jackson said.
Vertex is building charter schools in other states, and the projects in Wayne and Mecklenburg counties are not related other than being financed by the same company, Dr. Ken Benton, chairman of the Wayne Preparatory Academy board, said in an earlier interview.
The hope is that the local school would eventually pay off the lease and own all of the property, he said.
Benton said that the initial issuance would be between $5 million and $8 million for the local school.
However, Benton did not answer specific questions concerning what the money would be used for, the time frame, or where the school would be built.