Alamance-Burlington school board members have voted, 7-0, to begin the statutory dispute process of challenging the county commissioners’ adoption of the budget that school board members allege provides inadequate resources for the school system.
This is the first time that long-festering tensions between the commissioners and school board has resulted in the challenge process.
The board emerged after spending about an hour and half in closed session (from 1:46 p.m. to 3:23 p.m.) with their attorney.
Part of the rationale commissioner Steve Carter used to justify his proposed property tax increase and higher allotments to the school system Monday night, which the board passed on a 3-2 vote, was the desire to avoid what he termed a “liability” that the county might incur if such a dispute process were initiated.
Commissioners were aware last night that the school board had called a special meeting for today.
Part of the commissioners’ discussion, especially from Carter, was the menacing hint from the school system’s leaders that they may invoke a rarely-used statutory tool to pressure the county’s governing board toward a decision more favorable to them.
Although the county technically isn’t obligated to fund the school system’s operations as it is maintenance and other capital needs, the General Assembly has given local school systems the right to demand mediation if they’re dissatisfied with the operational allowance they get from the local governments that subsidize them.
According to Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens, during last night’s commissioner meeting, the Alamance-Burlington school system could use this option to bring the county to the negotiating table. Then, should mediation prove fruitless, the statutory formula would automatically set the operational outlay closer to this year’s level than what the county manager had recommended.
“The past year’s funding is used as part of a multiplier to figure out what the next year’s funding will be,” Stevens explained to the commissioners on Monday. “I think this is the fallback position when the two parties can’t agree to a number, and there’s no right to appeal this number anywhere else.”
Carter, for one, feared that the school board would use this special meeting to invoke its statutory right should the commissioners fail to live up to the school system’s expectations on Monday. The board’s vice chairman had initially proposed to defer this possibility by delaying the vote on the budget until Thursday. He nevertheless used a 10 minute recess to compare notes with fellow commissioner Pam Thompson, a former ABSS school board chairman, and ultimately came back to the dais with a proposal that would form the basis for the county’s new budget.
Carter, Thompson, and commissioner Kelly Allen voted for the 2½-cent tax hike and additional spending for ABSS; chairman John Paisley, Jr. and Ed Priola voted against.
Under the procedures outlined in state law (N.C.G.S. 115C-431), “if the board of education determines that the amount of money appropriated to the local current expense fund, or the capital outlay fund, or both, by the board of county commissioners is not sufficient to support a system of free public schools, the chairman of the board of education and the chairman of the board of county commissioners shall arrange a joint meeting of the two boards to be held within seven days after the day of the county commissioners’ decision on the school appropriations.
“In such a case, the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge [which would be Alamance County senior resident superior court judge Andy Hanford] shall appoint a mediator unless the boards agree to jointly select a mediator. The mediator shall preside at the joint meeting and shall act as a neutral facilitator of disclosures of factual information, statements of positions and contentions, and efforts to negotiate an agreement settling the boards’ differences.
“At the joint meeting, the entire school budget shall be considered carefully and judiciously, and the two boards shall make a good-faith attempt to resolve the differences that have arisen between them.”
Attorney Rod Malone of the Tharrington Smith Law Firm in Raleigh told school board members (in the absence of their usual attorney Adam Mitchell of the same firm, who is on vacation) that, typically, these disputes are worked out within a couple of weeks.
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