By Katie Northcott, News Director
Joey Vaughn, Supervisor of Schools for Manchester City Schools, said at a work session with the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BOMA) that a $1 million yearly contribution to paying off a bond taken out to build a new middle school building would possibly close the Manchester City School District.
Vaughn spoke at a work session on Tuesday, the second of two joint work sessions between the BOMA and school board this year. At the first work session in April, Vaughn asked the BOMA to fund a new middle school building.
Find reporting on the first work session here.
Vaughn said at the April meeting that College Street Elementary and Westwood Middle School (WMS) are at capacity while Westwood Elementary School has a small amount of room for growth. He projected that WMS would have a population of 550 to 600 students for the 2026-2027 school year. Vaughn said that if the project to build a new middle school moved forward the old WMS building would likely become an elementary school.
The BOMA and school board agree that a new building is needed. The BOMA initially tossed around the idea of building a high school. However, the $87 million price tag on a high school seems to be out of reach for the city. Vice Mayor Mark Messick questioned how the city could afford the estimated $52 million cost of a new middle school building.
Mayor Joey Hobbs replied that the school board would need to have some “skin in the game” and contribute financially to the construction of a new building.
“When we were talking with Scott, our financial guy, we believe [the bond payment on the middle school building] is going to be between $3 million and $3.3 million,” Hobbs said. “I wouldn’t be willing to get the city into a situation where we wouldn’t be able to continue the work we’re doing, so we asked [the school board] to be thinking about how they can help us with that payment.”
The city currently pays $1.3 million towards bonds on projects for Manchester City Schools and allocates an additional $2.6 million to the district in its budget.
Vaughn said more conversation is needed about the exact amount the school board would contribute should the city plan to move forward with building a middle school. He said the $1 million number was thrown out at a school board meeting on Monday, and he believed that number would possibly close the district.
“I can’t speak for my board, but I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be able to help and have skin in the game, but I’m not sure that at that level it would be fiscally responsible,” Vaughn said.
Hobbs said he “didn’t know” if he agreed with Vaughn. Alderman Donny Parsley said that the school needed to account for growth over the next two to three years, which Vaughn estimated at around 200 students.
Each student would bring $8,000 in state funding, so Parsley estimated that the district would be receiving an additional $1.6 million in revenue by the time the new building was finished. However, Vaughn countered that with every additional 20 students, the district would have to hire a new teacher.
Alderman Thomas Crosslin said that he just needed to see a commitment from the school board to work with the city on the project.
“It’s the right thing to do, and your board is full of smart people, and most of us are pretty smart too,” Crosslin said. “Let’s commit to do as much as we can together, and then we’ll win.”
Vaughn and the school board agreed that they are committed to find a way to build the new middle school.
“I really appreciate the fact that Mayor Hobbs came on board, and he was from day one: ‘Let’s build a school,’” Vaughn said.
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