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The committee has completed four of seven scheduled meetings this year.
With a board of seven and about 70 members, the committee has had two meetings per month since Feb. 25 to discuss the needs of the district and how to meet those needs.
At the last meeting on April 14 members broke into workshop groups of about eight to a table. Led by Eric Haugeberg, assistant superintendent for Support Services, each group grappled with prioritizing a list of 35 needs by assembling blue slips of paper, each with the name of a need printed on it into columns of A, B and C priority.
It’s a winnowing down process to see how many opinions converge from the groups. The committee includes many civic and business leaders.
Haugeberg said Thursday that it would take two weeks to complete a compilation of all the groups findings from April 14. But certain needs showed up consistently from group to group.
“It appeared the Belton High School Capacity Plan, land acquisition, a new middle school, a new elementary school and athletic complexes and improvements were near the top,” Haugeberg said.
At the next meeting on April 28 at Lake Belton Middle School financial consultants will address the group and talk about financing needs, Haugeberg said.
Haugeberg said a long-range plan tells the administration what capital improvements will be needed next year and over the next five to 10 years. The plan assists in formulating the operating budget and capital improvements plan.
On Feb. 25 the board met in open session to hear from Frank Kelley, director of Educational Facility Planning for the SHW Group Inc. Kelley said that an update on demographics indicates the enrollment will increase from 8,300 to 13,000 in the next decade.
He said the huge change is cause to think far into the future.
On March 10, Fred Morris, planning director for Belton, gave the committee historical trends and population projections for planning infrastructure projects.
At that same meeting, Temple City Manager David Blackburn presented Temple’s water and wastewater master plan update.
Haugeberg said planning for new schools goes hand-in-hand with planning for new infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer. He said the Belton school district extends from Belton into Temple, so part of the planning process involves coordinating with both city governments.
After the May 12 planning meeting at the Harris Community Center in Belton the district can make decisions on facilities planning for the coming year.
The public is invited to attend and watch the process. But the meetings are not an open forum where the public speaks, said Haugeberg.
Committee members have been encouraged to solicit the public’s opinion and bring ideas to the table, he said.
“My charge to the committee is to communicate clearly with the community and listen to what they want so that we can conceive a plan,” Haugeberg said.
hclark@temple-telegram.com