NATCHEZ — A Mobile, Ala., based consulting group will meet Monday with the Natchez-Adams School District Board of Trustees to discuss options for financing new or renovated schools that could cost up to $42 million.

The public meeting will be at 10 a.m. Monday in the board room at the Braden Administrative Building on Homochitto Street.

Volkert Inc. is currently involved in the building of a $42 million high school in Union Parish. Natchez-Adams officials are in talks with the group about building a new high school or elementary school.

Volkert representatives, which estimate a new Natchez High School would cost approximately $42 million, had previously reported to trustees a new high school could be built without raising additional tax revenue. However, in May, Volkert reported concerns with the district’s 2015 audit that could derail the tax-free possibility.

Interim Superintendent Fred Butcher asked all board members to be present and to be prepared to ask questions.

“We need to go into this meeting with some kind of a plan,” Butcher said. “Volkert builds schools all the time, and we don’t.

“We need to make sure we have scripted questions to ask.”

Trustee Phillip West also urged fellow board members to be willing to reach out to other companies to manage the project. West said while Volkert has built or is building schools in neighboring states, the group has not built a school in Mississippi.

West said with the amount of money this will cost and also considering the district is more than a decade behind on addressing the needs of its school facilities, this is not an area where mistakes can be afforded.

“We need to make sure we have the best,” West said. “Hopefully you are the best, but if not, we want the best.”

Volkert was selected for this project by a previous administration before West was on the board of trustees.

West said the board should tour Volkert’s past school building work in Alabama and Louisiana, but it should also look at the recently school projects in Clinton and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Volkert representative Jesse Perkins said the company has managed several billion dollars worth of school projects, and it has worked in Mississippi before, just not in building schools.

Bonds set to retire in 2017 were part of the package that could have allowed the district to build a new high school without new taxes.

Board Attorney Bruce Kuehnle previously said the debt bonds are retiring in 2017, but the millage enacted to support the bonds is tied to those specific bonds. Keuhnle said the board would have to go through the process again when new bonds are issued in securing debt-service millage.

Volkert officials previously reported building a new high school was projected to cost $42 million, while renovating the school would cost approximately $23 million. Renovating Frazier is projected to cost $11 million, while renovating Washington School — which could be used as an additional elementary school — would cost $5 million.