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 attorney Rod Malone of the Tharrington Smith law firm, who was filling in while the board’s regular attorney, Adam Mitchell, was away on vacation.
Present for the special-called meeting at the ABSS Central Office Tuesday afternoon and voting to begin the process were: school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves; vice chairman Dan Ingle; and board members Tameka Harvey, Dr. Charles Parker, and Seneca Rogers.
School board members Dr. Eric Hall and Avery Wagoner were unable to attend the meeting in person but listened to the discussion and voted by phone to adopt the resolution to begin the dispute resolution process.
Part of the rationale that the commissioners’ vice chairman, Steve Carter used, to justify voting in favor of a 2½-cent increase in the property tax rate 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 when they voted to adopt their budget Monday night that the school board had called a special meeting for Tuesday afternoon.
Carter attended the school board’s special-called meeting Tuesday afternoon – and spoke from the podium – prior to ducking out just before the school board entered into closed session.
Carter reiterated some of the same misgivings he’d outlined Monday night, prior to voting for the tax increase, while also offering what he termed clarification about the reason why he supported increasing the county’s allocation to ABSS. “It took me a while to realize they were defunding the schools,” he said, adding, “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
School board members effusively praised the three commissioners Tuesday afternoon who’d voted to increase funding for ABSS for the upcoming fiscal year.
“I thank you, commissioner Allen, and also [commissioner] Thompson,” Ingle told Carter. “That was government and how it works efficiently; I know it was tough.”
Carter: I’ve always been opposed to raising taxes
Carter pointed out that he and his wife, a retired schoolteacher, have always supported public education. “I will continue to support public education,” the commissioner vice chairman said Tuesday afternoon. “I couldn’t figure out what y’all would be trying to budget.” Carter went on to recall how – especially in light of his earlier involvement with the local Tea Party – he has been “opposed to raising taxes, particularly when they weren’t needed.”
“That was higher than two members of our board wanted at that time. . . My goal is to try to do the right thing as I feel led, to try to make the professional, right decision for Alamance County. It’s our family; we love this place.”
“My goal is to try to do the right thing as I feel led, to try to make the professional, right decision for Alamance County. It’s our family; we love this place.”
– Alamance County commissioner vice chairman Steve Carter
“We’ve cut everything that doesn’t have to be done,” Carter said of the budget that the commissioners adopted this week. “The impact of last night’s [tax] increase is a little over $5 a month on a median price home. I know there are people who will hurt, so that touches our heart – everybody on the board. We’ve got to operate in the same county that everybody [here] lives [in].”
At the same time, Carter acknowledged that costs– including personnel, equipment, and other expenses in county government – have gone up across the board. “We did a tax increase last year of 3.66 cents,” he acknowledged. “That was higher than two members of our board wanted at that time…My goal is to try to do the right thing as I feel led, to try to make the professional, right decision for Alamance County. It’s our family; we love this place.”
ABSS superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming subsequently recapped the highlights of the county’s allocation to the school system for the 2025-26 fiscal year that begins July 1. “We received all of our [annual capital outlay for routine building maintenance and repairs,” he acknowledged.
ABSS had requested – for the first time ever, which school officials said was at the direction of county government officials earlier this year –$14.7 million in capital improvement funding for big-ticket repairs such as roofs and HVAC systems and received $8 million in county funding under that line item. [See chart with history of what ABSS requests and county funding.]
[Story continues below chart on ABSS requests and county funding 2019 to 2025.]
ABSS had requested a total of $59 million (an increase of $5.7 million above the current fiscal year) in county current expense funding for 2025-26 and received $53.3 million, based on the budget that the commissioners adopted Monday night.
Fleming described that line item Tuesday afternoon as “level-funded” – i.e., about the same amount of county current expense funding that ABSS received for 2024-25.
The $6.7 million gap in CIP funding means that roof and HVAC system replacements probably won’t get done, as Fleming described it Tuesday afternoon.
ABSS chief operating officer Greg Hook told the board Tuesday that two roof replacements planned for the upcoming fiscal year – at Sylvan Elementary and Southern Middle schools, which he said have frequent water leaks – “at this point would be off the table.”
Also delayed as a result of the gap in CIP funding, Hook said, would be the installation of keyless door systems.
Fleming told the board that other likely funding cuts would include a planned restoration of positions that had been eliminated – due to a budget crisis near the end of then-superintendent Dain Butler’s tenure in 2024-25 – as well as $1.1 million to provide a new supplement for classified employees such as child nutrition assistants, custodians, and bus drivers.
School board chairman takes aim at funding for charter schools
Ellington-Graves pointed out that $520,000 in the $5.7 million “expansion budget” is for charter schools where students from Alamance County are enrolled. “I don’t think the county understands that allocation,” she said. “I think it would be helpful for our county to understand why that $520,000 is being requested for reimbursement.”
Chief finance officer Tony Messer explained, “For us to fully get what we need, we have to break that charter school number out; if we don’t, we never truly get funded for what we ask for.”
“I think us on the board,” board member Seneca Rogers responded, “would love it if they [charter schools] would have to put their own request out there.”
Ellington-Graves then turned her attention to where ABSS ranks for its county-funded teacher supplement, which they (as well as principals, assistant principals, and ABSS administrators) receive on top of their state-funded salary.
According to the school board chairman, ABSS ranks 34 out of 115 N.C. school systems for its teacher supplement, which she said averages $6,432, while the current state average teacher supplement is $7,028. She said that, in 2020-21, which was at the height of the Covid pandemic, the teacher supplement for ABSS had ranked 10 out of 115 N.C. school systems.
The school board chairman also pointed out Tuesday afternoon that eight nearby school systems, including Orange County schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools, offered higher teacher supplements ($8,102 and $11,043, respectively) in 2024-25. [Orange County, in which those two school systems are located, also had the fifth-highest tax rate among the 100 N.C. counties in 2024-25, according to the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, which Ellington-Graves didn’t mention.]
“We don’t have a classified [employee] supplement,” Ellington-Graves said during the special-called meeting. “We are the second-largest employer in the county, and we have to be able to pay competitive wages.”
Wagoner, who participated in the discussion by phone, responded: “We have to invest in our future – learn from the past, but forget it. We have a great opportunity to be so great, not average. My job and your job is to work our tails off to make ABSS the best school system in North Carolina. Quit complaining, having the arguments we always have. If you continue to live in the past, you’ll do nothing better.”
Part of the commissioners’ discussion Monday night, especially by 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 isn’t statutorily obligated to fund the school system’s operations (i.e., current expense budget), as it is maintenance and other capital needs, a state law passed in 1997 gives local school systems the ability to challenge county funding decisions.
Alamance County attorney Rik Stevens briefed the commissioners Monday night on the funding dispute resolution process that ABSS could use to bring the county to the negotiating table.
The same state law requires mediation to be completed no later than August 1, or one month beyond the beginning of the fiscal year. The school board has seven days from the date on which the county budget is adopted to trigger the dispute resolution process, which consists of four stages.
Alamance County’s commissioners are scheduled to hold an emergency meeting at 1:00 p.m. today, June 19, in the commissioners’ meeting room on the second floor of the county office building. The purpose of the meeting is to enter into a closed session to consult with an attorney in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege.
On Friday, June 20, the commissioners and school board are scheduled to hold a joint meeting at 1:00 p.m. in the superior courtroom on the third floor of Alamance County’s Historic Court House in downtown Graham to discuss the ABSS budget request for 2025-26. The joint meeting will immediately be followed by “a closed session mediation” between the two parties, according to the meeting notice from ABSS.
Statutory requirements
The state law that allows a school board to dispute the county’s annual appropriation – if the board believes the level of county funding for current expenses and/or capital outlay is insufficient – outlines a four-prong process.
First, the board of county commissioners and school board are required to hold a joint meeting, with a neutral mediator present, to try to resolve their differences about the amount of funding – that is legally necessary in the fiscal year “to maintain a system of free public schools that year – based on factual information, statements of positions, and contentions.
Secondly, the state law provides that, if the two boards fail to reach an agreement during the joint meeting, the two boards may enter into an official mediation, similar to a mediated settlement conference in a civil suit.
“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 dispute resolution statute stipulates. The mediator shall preside at the joint meeting and shall act as a neutral facilitator of disclosures of factual information,
In the third stage, the school board has the option to file a lawsuit against the county in superior court, if the two boards fail to reach an agreement on the county’s annual funding allocation; the suit must be filed within five days of an unsuccessful mediation.
The fourth stage outlined in the state law provides that either party may appeal the superior court decision.
Though the county attorney told the commissioners Monday night that the previous fiscal year’s funding “is used as part of a multiplier to figure out what the next year’s funding will be,” the statute that governs the dispute resolution process outlines how such a calculation would be made by a judge and/or jury at a trial.
Rather, the statute stipulates that the calculation must be based on: the educational goals and policies of the state and the local school board; the school board’s county budget request; the financial resources of the county and school system; and the fiscal policies of the board of commissioners and school board.
A separate North Carolina law segregates the responsibilities for funding public schools as follows: counties are responsible for funding the building, equipment, and maintenance of school facilities; and the state is responsible for funding school operations (i.e., current expenses) from state revenues.
Carter, for one, said Monday night that he feared the school board would invoke this statutory right should the commissioners fail to live up to the school system’s expectations about the county’s funding levels for 2025-26.
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, an eight-year member of the school board who’d served one year as its 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.
Malone told school board members that, typically, these disputes are worked out within a couple of weeks.
See related story on history of similar mediation disputes between school boards and their county commissioners: https://alamancenews.com/dispute-resolution-process-used-often-but-rarely-results-in-litigation/
Read our editorial page views on the school board’s decision to challenge the budget allocation they were given in county budget: https://alamancenews.com/abss-vs-county-why-now/
