Cobb school board to consider SPLOST loans, public comments

The Cobb Board of Education will be asked to approve taking out $100 million in short-term loans for construction projects on Thursday.

The board is meeting in public at a 2 p.m. work session and a 7 p.m. business session Thursday at the Cobb County School District Central Office (514 Glover St., Marietta).

There will be public comment periods at the start of both meetings, but speakers must sign up in advance by clicking here.

Each public comment session is limited to 30 minutes, and individual speakers have a maximum of two minutes.

The agendas for both meetings can be found here; the work session technically begins at 1 p.m., but members will convene, go into an executive session and return for a public work session at 2 p.m.

The meetings also will be live-streamed on the district’s BoxCast channel and on CobbEdTV, Comcast Channel 24.

Another executive session will take place between the public meetings.

In recent years, the Cobb County School District has taken out short-term loans to get a head start on construction projects funded by its Special Local-Option Sales Tax, and to save money.

Among the major construction projects on tap for this year is the reconstruction of Eastvalley Elementary School on the former campus of East Cobb Middle School.

If the board approves, the $100 million loan would be repaid at the end of the calendar year with SPLOST revenues.

The board will be asked to accept a “best bid” for the purchase of the loans that will be presented at the work session. The final vote would come in the evening session.

The board also will be asked to consider changing the policy for signing up for public comment periods.

Last year the board approved an online registration process but a proposal to be presented Thursday would revert to the previous in-person sign-up process.

The board also will be asked to spend $3 million to purchase 25 air conditioned buses that hold 72 passengers each.

What’s not listed specifically on the agenda is any mention of the Cobb school district’s changing COVID protocols that were announced in December by Superintendent Chris Ragsdale.

He said that per a new state public health order, Cobb will eliminate most contact-tracing and will be changing staff quarantine policy for employees who are identified as close contacts.

Since the spring semester began earlier this month, the district has not been revealing any COVID case data.

A district spokeswoman told East Cobb News last week that the policy for counting cases is “under review” and that “once determined, we will provide an update on our COVID-19 webpage about what process we will use going forward.”

There could be information provided by Ragsdale under agenda items at both meetings regarding superintendent’s remarks.

The only items listed under board business at the work session are for annual board member compliance reports and appointments to the district’s facilities and technology committee, which conducts SPLOST oversight.

Thursday’s meetings will be the first with board member David Chastain of East Cobb presiding as chairman.

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