Hart BOE Asks County to Consolidate Extension Ofc, 4-H at New Ag Center

Hart County School Superintendent Jerry Bell is asking for the County’s help to fund a plan to move the Hart County Extension office and 4-H to the new high school Agriculture Center.

Plans for the Ag Center and a College and Career Center campus on the Bowman Highway are now on the drawing board, and are being built with a multi-million dollar grant and eSPLOST monies.

Tuesday evening, Bell came before the Hart County Board of Commissioners to present the idea of consolidating the agriculture services into the one, new location.

Bell said after a research committee looked at other counties, it was decided to move forward with a plan to move the Extension office and 4-H to the new Ag Center.

“One of the things we found was that especially in Oglethorpe,  they have their Extension Agent and 4-H offices housed in their Ag Center,” Bell said. “So that brought up a lot of discussion in several meetings we had between the school system and the the 4-H and Extension Agent.”

Bell said since agriculture is one of the main industries in Hart County, it makes sense for all agriculture services to be consolidated into one location where students would also have greater access.

According to Bell, his office then began working on an alternate design plan for the new Ag Center that would include both offices.

However, he said adding both offices would require an estimated $200,000 from the County.

Commissioner Joey Dorsey said it makes sense to have both the Extension office and 4-H in the new Ag building but suggested doing a pay-as-you-go plan so the county could fund it in stages.

“Right now, I know from a cash flow standpoint, we don’t have $200,000 that we could fork over,” Dorsey told Bell. “But I’m wondering if we could at least, as you guys start the process, if we could get the shell part and the outer structure and then we could finish the inside as we go.”

Bell said the school board is open to working with the County to come up with a viable solution.  Dorsey then suggested the Commission appoint a subcommittee to work with the school board on the project.

Dorsey, Commissioners Ricky Carter and Frankie Teasley volunteered to be on the subcommittee.

Bell said they hope to bid out the project in June with a view towards beginning construction by the end of July or early August.