Nelson County planning committee approves draft facility plan to send to KDE for review

The Local Planning Committee for Nelson County Schools voted to approve a draft District Facility Plan (DFP) for submission to the Kentucky Department of Education for review after discussing revenue, pricing assumptions and project priorities.

Committee members and staff centered the discussion on how facility construction is funded and what the district can afford over the coming decades. A staff member briefed the committee on revenue sources, explaining that facility funding is generated from property assessments and the school tax rate. The briefing noted the district’s current school tax rate of 67.3 cents and said the “bottom three nickels” (15 cents) are effectively dedicated to facility funding; the staff member said that amount yields about $7.4 million for facility construction in the current fiscal year.

The committee heard from Stephen Ward, who explained how KDE establishes construction pricing for the DFP. “If one of your elementary schools got destroyed, what would it cost to replace it exactly? And it would be $355 a square foot according to KDE,” Ward said, noting KDE’s 2025 property insurance replacement guidelines provide the standardized figures the department asks districts to use. Ward also told the committee that actual construction bids in the current market…