Politics & Government

Gwinnett BOE To Discuss New Land Acquisition Policy

Formal adoption of $1.7-billion FY2012 budget also on agenda for Thursday night's meeting.

The Gwinnett County Board of Education will be looking over and possibly voting on a new policy for acquiring land at its Thursday (May 19) meeting in Suwanee.

A draft of the policy that is on the board's agenda, among other things, calls for potential deals to be discussed at future board meetings and to be posted on the Gwinnett County Public Schools website.

The proposed policy is posted on the GCPS website.

Find out what's happening in Duluthwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Also at Thursday's meeting, the board is scheduled to formally adopt the $1.7- billion budget for the 2011-12 school year. The spending plan tentatively was approved by the board in April.

GCPS land-acquisition methods came under public criticism because of a series of articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Published reports said that the system paid inflated prices for several school sites, and that developers who sold the land made large profits, as much as $1 million per day in one case.

Find out what's happening in Duluthwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Also, the Gwinnett school system has authorized a former federal prosecutor to conduct a third-party investigation of GCPS land deals dating back to 1999. Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks -- not an actual board member -- has defended GCPS land purchases, saying aggregate savings total $37.5 million.

The agenda also lists consideration of a bullying policy.

The Gwinnett system is the state's largest, with about 161,000 students. It expects continued enrollment growth and declining revenue for the 2012-13 school year.

Thursday's board meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the Suwanee headquarters. Also, the board will hold a work session at 3 p.m., and a meeting at 5:30 p.m. A session for public comments will be held at 6:30 p.m.

For the complete agenda, click here.


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