$2.5 million is from sales tax
Murphy – The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners on Monday night approved Cherokee County Schools’ request for use of $2.5 million from its Article 40/42 sales tax fund.
The money represents a required 5 percent match for a $50 million grant that the school system received from the State of North Carolina in September to build a consolidated high school.
The board split along its usual lines 3-2 when it comes to consolidation, with Commissioners Dan Eichenbaum, Randy Phillips and Gary “Hippie” Westmoreland voting in favor of the move, and Jan Griggs and Cal Stiles voting against.
Jason Murphy, one of four incoming members on the Cherokee County Board of Education, spoke during public comment and requested that the board delay the decision until next month.
“I am a firm believer that the Bible, which is God’s written word to us, is a guide on how we should live our lives, and that we can find wisdom within its teaching,” Murphy said. “Luke, Chapter 14, verses 23-30 tells us, for which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was not able to finish.”
Murphy and the other three new board members will take their seats in December. He noted that LS3P, the architect firm in charge of designing the consolidated high school, is expected to give an updated presentation during the
school board’s December meeting. That presentation should add in athletic facility options and clarify the extra costs associated with those facilities.
James Ellis, a current school board member, also spoke at the meeting and said he would like to repurpose the $50 million grant for a K-8 school that would consolidate several elementary and middle schools located within several miles of each other in the Murphy area.