By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer

For lack of $309,000, Fayette County schools have given up $2.7 million.

The Board of Education Monday voted to withdraw its application for a state grant totalling $2.7 million for construction of a new elementary school due to the lack of the required local matching funds.

An application for funding an elementary and middle school with state growth funds was approved in May, but failure of the special purpose local option sales tax referendum Sept. 21, intended to provide the necessary local match, has prompted school officials to withdraw the elementary portion of the application until another source of funding can be found.

No action was taken on withdrawing application for the middle school funds.

“We can apply for the next round of funding in a year,” said Dr. John DeCotis, superintendent of Fayette County schools. “We will go back and revisit the five-year facilities plan and decide how we want to approach this, either with a charter school, which may not be as much money, or additions to buildings.”

The board also approved the formation of a task force to address an increasing teacher shortage that is facing the state and the country. “Within the next five years, there will be a teacher shortage nationwide,” DeCotis predicted.

“In an informal review here, up to 30 percent of our teachers will retire in five years. We live in a growing area and in Georgia, we don't graduate enough teachers, especially special education teachers,” he said.

The task force will be headed by Judy Byrd of the district's Human Relations Department. Recommendations will be presented in February to the board.

The board also was looking at a unified salary scale proposal for district employees and a recommendation to review the current benefits package.