Education Committee discusses superintendent’s 10-year plan

JACKSON, Tenn. — Jackson-Madison County Schools Superintendent Dr. Eric Jones met Tuesday with the city of Jackson’s Education Committee to discuss his 10-year plan.

“We were wanting to see what we could do as a city to be a part of the deal that they’re making,” Councilman Johnny Dodd, District 2, said.

The school system wants to split up the schools between the city and the county in terms of who pays for what. Now the city is left with the question of “How do we pay for this?”

“Our role as master developer to look creatively at some financing ideas as to how we can make that happen,” Hal Crocker, from Healthy Community LLC, said.

Crocker is a part of the Community Redevelopment Agency, which wants to be in charge of building the two new schools proposed in Jones’ 10-year-plan.

“They need to make their decision on what’s best for the city because it’s not a good deal for us if it’s not a good deal for the city,” Crocker said.

However, all of this comes with a cost for the city of Jackson in the long run.

“There is a bank that is willing to loan the money for seven years, and we will pay just the interest on that money for seven years, but then there would be a balloon note,” Councilwoman Vicky Foote, District 1, said.

Foote says the note at the end of the seven years would be about $9 million. The way to pay for that is still uncertain, but the committee voted to send this proposal to the City Council, with one condition.

“We’re getting an individual, outside agent to look at this to see if it will be beneficial for the city to be a part of this plan,” Dodd said.

Foote said they should have the independent financial adviser’s input back within the next two weeks.