By Rebecca Rider
rebecca.rider@salisburypost.com

EAST SPENCER — When the Rowan-Salisbury Schools Board of Education meets Monday, they’ll receive expenditure updates for the Wallace Educational Forum as well as cost estimates to route water and sewer lines to the planned western elementary school.

The board will meet in the Long Street Board Room at 110 S. Long St. on Monday at 4 p.m. for its monthly business meeting.

According an attachment on the board’s online agenda, expenditures for the Wallace Educational Forum currently total $8,907,080.10. Rowan-Salisbury Schools contributed $7,100,000.00 to the project and received $1,966,712.72 in donations, including $544,372.32 from the City of Salisbury, $875,000.00 from the Robertson Foundation, a donation of $380,193.00 from the Wallace family for the building’s crowning dome and $150,000.00 from the Stanback family for solar panels. The donations brought the total revenue for the project to $9,066,712.72.

The board currently has $159,632.62 remaining in its budget for the new offices. The online agenda notes that these are not the final numbers for the project.

Cost estimates for water and sewer systems at the new western elementary school have been received from Davis, Martin and Powell Engineers and Surveyors. Providing water to the site, located at the corner of N.C 801 and Godbey Road, is estimated to cost $242,192. Two estimates for sewer systems were submitted, one focusing on erosion control and costing $948,926 and one costing $899,072. Water lines would be drawn along N.C. 801, while the sewer main would follow Parks Road, on the other side of the property.

In other business the board will:

• Consider a bid for sale of the Kizer school building located at 2710 Cottage Street, Salisbury. The bid was submitted by Grateful Heart Community Services and offers $51,000 for the building and property. According to the bid, the group hopes to provide housing for men in transition. The building was originally suggested for sale in 2014.
• Approve a temporary easement to the Department of Transportation that borders Bostian Elementary School.
• Discuss the implementation of lap and shoulder seat belts on replacement school buses. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction offers to provide the belts on the condition that the local school board ensure that all effort is made for their use, up to and including the passage of policy or installing video surveillance in more buses.
• Consider April 27 as the date for the first public hearing on school consolidation. The first meeting would occur at West Rowan High School.

Contact reporter Rebecca Rider at 704-797-4264.