East Grand School District has backed out of a potential property purchase that was announced earlier this week.

On Tuesday, the school board voted to go under contract for the five-acre property at 296 County Road 611 for $799,000 with the hope that it could be the home of a future elementary school. However, the funds the district thought it had to cover the purchase turned out to be unavailable.

“It’s unfortunate, but in the Grand County rush for real estate, we did the same thing in the end,” Superintendent Frank Reeves said over the phone Friday.

Funds for the property were supposed to come out of the district’s money in lieu of land fund, which developers pay as a sort of fee to mitigate the impact new properties will have on the school system.

Reeves said that through an oversight, the school district realized Wednesday that this fund would not be able to cover the purchase.

Because of this, the school district would actually have had to dip into its general fund. That would need its own budgeting process and could take money away from things like increasing teacher salaries, which Reeves explained is a big priority for East Grand.

Unwilling to go the general fund route, the district backed out of the purchase.

The school board had hoped that this location might become the home for a school to replace Granby Elementary, which has reached capacity. As Grand continues to grow, the school district will need to find a solution at some point.

East Grand is currently working through the budgeting process for the next school year, which should be approved in the next month and a half. Reeves said, hopefully, the district can set aside the proper funds for the purchase of a property to address this need.