Murphy – Skeptical Cherokee County commissioners tabled a request to approve a $75,000 feasibility study over whether 99 acres the school district owns near Murphy High School could be used for a new school campus.
School board members aren’t sure what to do with the acreage – which is steep, rocky and inhospitable – and approved the $75,000 expenditure during discussions about school consolidation.
Schools Superintendent Keevin Woody, who appeared at the commissioners’ April 21 meeting, said a study concluding that the site is not feasible for a school campus would enable the school district to offer the parcel to the county or sell it as surplus.
Because the expense for the study would be paid by sales tax revenues, it needs approval from the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners.
“That’s awfully expensive,” Commissioner Cal Stiles said.
He suggested that the school district could pay the cost from its own fund balance without needing approval by the county commissioners.
Woody said the school board would prefer to pay the cost with sales tax proceeds.
School board members were divided about the 99-acre parcel, with the feasibility study intended to rule out whether the property could be developed more cheaply than acquiring new property.
The two boards have been at odds over how to manage an overabundance of school campuses. A one-high-school-campus consolidation plan was defeated in December 2022, with the two boards since then debating where to go from there.
The school board pitched a grades 6-12 high school somewhere in the county to replace Murphy High, but commissioners instead favored a grades 8-12 school in Peachtree. The school board has not discussed the commissioners’ proposal.
School consolidation was an issue for another request from Cherokee County Schools for $204,000 to add more restrooms to Murphy Middle School.
Cal Stiles described the restroom expenditure as excessive, as well, while board Chair Dan Eichenbaum said he has problems with both expenditures given that there was still no plan to deal with the county’s surplus of school campuses.
“We still have no plan,” Eichenbaum told Woody.
“We sent a plan,” Woody replied.
Eichenbaum said county schools were asking for authorization to spend $279,000 between the feasibility student and the restroom project, with no longer-term plan.
“I know we need restrooms, but we don’t know what the building will be used for,” he said.
Commissioner Ben Adams said that it is likely that the Murphy Middle School campus would be used for some purpose.
The board approved the restroom project expenditure.