Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
The Autauga County Board of Education held a special called meeting Thursday morning where the Board approved the $1 million project to put artificial turf in the Marbury High School’s stadium.
Superintendent Lyman Woodfin confirmed that the turf is expected to be in place and ready to hold games by the first game of the season. Marbury’s season begins August 23rd against Stanhope-Elmore High School, and their first home game is August 30th. Woodfin also confirmed that the work on the field has to be done by the first game of the season, stating it’s in the contractor’s contract.
“But the beautiful thing is they have light so they can work. They took the project knowing that this is a hard deadline. Now they may be pushing turf out the week before we play,” Woodfin said with a smile.
The bid was awarded to River Region Sports Fields in Millbrook. While Stanley-Jensen Stadium is still under construction, and not projected to be finished by the coming football season, the ACBOE plans to continue the game-to-game contract with the City of Wetumpka for Prattville High School to play their “home” games at the city’s municipal stadium for $10,000 a game.
While ACS has three stadiums within the school district, Autaugaville a 1A classification, Billingsley also a 1A classification, and Marbury a 5A classification, the stadiums are too small to hold the crowds for a Prattville High School 7A classification football program, and one of the largest enrolled high schools in the state.
Prattville Junior High, Prattville’s freshman and junior varsity and flag football teams as well as Marbury youth sports teams will use the “new” turfed stadium once it goes in.
The board also approved extending and renovating Autaugaville’s gym, renovating and repairing the field house at Prattville High School and renovating the restrooms at Prattville Intermediate, Prattville Elementary, Prattville Primary, Prattville Junior High and Marbury Middle School.
Woodfin’s stated that the costs of architect fees will be approximately $400,000 to the various projects started. Both the turf at Marbury High School and the renovations around the district will use ATF, the Alabama Technology Fund. Funding from the state that fluctuates year to year.
“That’s probably an over exaggeration (for funding) but I want to make sure we’re more in line with the excess than not enough. We will be using ATF funds to cover the cost of architectural fees and the construction cost of the projects, as the state continues to provide these funds.
Woodfin went on to reiterate that this is not local funding. The ATF is state funding that is not guaranteed every year. Woodfin confirmed that he’d like to take care of the construction and structural needs for the district now, while the funding is there.
“Right now, the tax referendum is working through the legislature right now. The thing that I want to highlight is these funds are not being spent out of our local money. These funds, these projects are being funded by special dollars that we can use for this purpose,” Woodfin said.
