Politics

VERDICT: DIVIDED BOARD OKs $100M COURTHOUSE ANNEX

Chart shows three options for funding the debt service for the $100 million courthouse tower. Other options not shown include a bond issue and shifting some rainy-day fund money to cover debt service. [HENDERSON COUNTY JCAR PRESENTATION]

By Bill Moss, Published: March 16, 2026

The verdict is in.

Henderson County is getting a new $100 million courthouse. County commissioners on Monday night voted 3-2 to authorize the much-debated and much scrutinized judicial center — but not before the two dissenters warned that a property tax may be in county residents’ future and other projects may have to be jettisoned. 

The three most senior commissioners — Chair Bill Lapsley, Vice Chair Michael Edney and Rebecca McCall — voted yes while the newest members, Sheila Franklin and Jay Egolf, voted no.

The 90,500-square-foot project includes an underground secure parking lot for judges, a gated lot for employees and public parking where the sheriff’s impound lot used to be. The four-story annex includes two courtrooms per floor. The 2½-year construction job is expected to break ground in May, with the courthouse opening in the fall of 2028.

Lapsley, Edney and McCall mounted a strong defense of the project while Frankin and Egolf warned that the debt service could require a hefty tax increase, cause other priorities to fall away or cut into the county’s annual appropriation for school maintenance, repair and security. Combined with a jail expansion that’s currently under way, cost of the Judicial Center Addition and Renovation, JCAR, totals around $170 million.

Assistant County Manager Christopher Todd announced the guaranteed maximum price of the four-story courthouse tower — adding that “this county has never blown a guaranteed maximum price” — as the commissioners began the discussion: ”A couple-hundred thousand under $100 million is the tal all-in number that would open your doors and there would be toilet paper in the toilet paper roll holders in the bathrooms. You’d have a turn-key, finished building. That includes the architects’ fee.”

$10M/year debt service

Borrowing for the courthouse would drive the county’s debt service up by $10 million a year — for a total of $32.2 million — starting in the 2026-27 fiscal year. Options for covering that, County Manager John Mitchell said, include a 5-cent property tax increase, using fund balance or using the county’s K-12 school and community college MRTS (maintenance, repairs, technology and security) fund. Options that would require voter approval include a quarter-cent sales tax increase or bond issue.

Edney minimized the potential for a property tax increase.

“We refinance at least once in every couple of years when interest rates work and they’ve saved us millions of dollars over the years,” he said. “We’re in great shape financially. We have tons of money in the bank, even though the federal government owes us a ton. We’ve got options. This county continues to grow, whether we like it or not. Our people are good. They’re better than anybody in the state, and they know what they’re doing. If they didn’t think we could do it, then they would tell us. So I’m not worried about the finances at all.”

Franklin rebutted that.

“I hear Commissioner Edney saying he’s not really worried about the money, but I think it’s a cold, hard fact, when you’re looking at $100 million, that it’s nothing to sneeze at,” she said. “If we do this project, it will probably narrow the other projects that we could possibly do for the next 10 years. The bus garage might be put on hold, the Clear Creek sewer for Edneyville, Etowah sewer, the ag services building, possible (Fletcher) library that’s been talked about for about 20 years.”

She said she still has doubts about the plans for parking and fears the new debt will hamstring the board as other priorities come up.

“I have concerns about taking MRTS money, being able to give COLA raises for county employees,” she said. “I worry about the state Legislature,” which is said to be eyeing a moratorium on county property tax increases. “And then there’s the age-old problem — the chicken or the egg. If you build the annex, is the state going to give you the staff and the judges that you have to have?”

‘Looking at what we need in 2050’

Franklin, who said she opposed raising taxes for the project, also pitched a major renovation instead that would move several departments out of the 1995 courthouse and renovate the space for new courtrooms. “You could take some county departments out and you could place them somewhere else for a whole lot cheaper than $100 million,” she said.

McCall countered that.

“We’re not looking at what we need now,” she said. “We’re looking at what we need in 2050. I feel good about everything we’ve done to get this project where it is. ... Yes, it’s a scary number, but I come from a business where those numbers aren’t scary, so it’s not as scary to me.

“The money has come for everything that we’ve done, and I have faith that the money will come without jeopardizing other things,” she continued. “There’s ways to do some of those other projects with grant money, and other ways to look at saving on the bottom line. If we wait, it’ll just be higher.”

Egolf said it’s too high now.

“I do the math and I get $1,100 a square foot,” he said. “I know it is needed and I know we should do it. But it should be my job to question anything taxpayers pay for. I question $1,100 a square foot. I see an increase tax rate of 5 cents, about $10 million a year in debt service. I’ve heard it would be a challenge to do anything big for 10 years. We’ve got to find a better way to do this. How does it cost $1,100 a square foot?”

When Egolf asked whether it was a certainty that the project would require a property tax increase, Mitchell responded: “I would caution against that assertion.”

‘No gold fixtures, no huge chandeliers’

But Lapsley, a retired civil engineer, said that over the past five years other options had been examined and discarded, and every effort had been made to trim costs.

“We’ve butchered this project as much as we can without lowering in my opinion the quality of the building,” he said. “There aren’t gold fixtures in the restrooms. I can assure you that there are no huge chandeliers in there to brag about. We’ve tried to be as cost efficient as we can during the period I mentioned, fall of 2023 early ‘24.”

Commissioners, architects, engineers and construction managers after close scrutiny and at times contentious debate had cut $20 million from the sticker-shock cost projection in 2023 of more than $200 million.

“There is no way, in my opinion, that we can cut from this building anything substantial,” Lapsley said. “If the board wants to get the price down to $75 million, it ain’t gonna happen. We’ve done all the value engineering, we’ve done all the economies that that I can see.”

In his opening argument, Lapsley set the table for the big vote.

“If this board decides to proceed, this will be the largest single capital project this board has ever had,” he said. “We as a board don’t take it lightly. But we’re also cognizant of the fact that state law requires that each county government is responsible for providing facilities for the judicial system in their county and we take that responsibility very seriously as well.”

And then, at the end, after Edney’s motion to authorize a guaranteed maximum construction price of $84,214,579.92 (soft cost and closing cost raises it to $101 million), Lapsley called for a rollcall vote: 3 yes, 2 no. Unlike a jury, the vote was not required to be unanimous.

“We look forward to a groundbreaking and eventually a ribbon-cutting on this new facility,” he said.