[Editor’s Note: this story has been updated from the breaking bulletin that was posted immediately following the Friday, June 20 joint meeting.]
An impending battle over Alamance County’s allocation to the local school system appeared to end before it even began with a tentative agreement on Friday that will add $4 million to what the county’s board of commissioners had previously approved for the school system’s operations.
Sandy-Ellington Graves, the chairman of the Alamance-Burlington school board, publicly revealed this prospective resolution on Friday afternoon after a 20-minute closed session among the school board members present.
“I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with our board of commissioners without the need for mediation.”
– ABSS board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves
“I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with our board of commissioners without the need for mediation,” she declared during this 25-minute confab, which had been convened as a prelude to a statutory mediation process that would’ve allowed the school system to challenge its latest allocation from the county.
Under this deal, which still needs a public vote of approval from both the school board and the commissioners, the county will add $2.7 million to the $53.3 million that a majority of the commissioners had approved for the school system’s operations on Monday when they adopted the county’s new annual budget.
The county has also agreed to restore $1.3 million to the school system to cover school resource officer salaries – a line item that county’s adopted budget had proposed to transfer directly to the office of Alamance County’s sheriff. The proposed agreement nevertheless stipulates that the school system can only use this $1.3 million to pay school resource officers, which had been a point of contention that led to the proposed transfer.
According to the text of the agreement, these concessions by the county bring to the sum total of the school system’s operational allowance to $57,306,881. This figure amounts to an increase of $4 million over what appears in the county’s newly-adopted budget. It nevertheless still falls $1.3 million short of the roughly $59 million that the schools had sought from the county for their operations next year.
The total amount for current expenses represents all but about $1.7 million of the school system’s original request for $5.4 million in additional operating expenses for the fiscal year.
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The text of the agreement also confirms the adopted budget’s allotment for the school system’s capital needs, which includes about $4.8 million for maintenance and other day-to-day costs as well as $9.4 million for larger capital projects, such as roof replacements and HVAC upgrades.
Ellington-Graves’ announcement about this interjurisdictional compact followed a 20-minute closed session, which the school board held with its attorneys immediately after its members convened their special joint meeting with the commissioners at Alamance County’s Historic Court House on Friday.
Read school board’s view that no vote is needed by school board to “approve” the agreement: https://alamancenews.com/after-joint-meeting-with-commissioners-abss-atty-says-school-board-needs-no-further-action/
All five of the commissioners were present when the joint meeting began – as were five of the school board’s seven members. School board member Charles Parker joined the meeting while his colleagues were still in closed session, while Ellington-Graves announced that fellow board member Avery Wagoner was absent due to a vacation.
During its closed-door huddle on Friday, the school board discussed an offer that the commissioners had presumably hashed out during their own closed door discussion on Thursday afternoon.
John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, subsequently acknowledged that the county attorney had nailed down the details of this tentative agreement based on his privileged conversation with the commissioners on Thursday.
“More than two [of the five] commissioners directed him to settle,” Paisley went on to recount in a phone call on Monday, “and it was done through our attorney.”
“I’m opposed to this agreement at this time. I don’t think we’ve considered all the factors going into the amount of this agreement.” – County commissioner Ed Priola
Paisley added that the $1.3 million reallocation from the sheriff proved crucial to this compromise. Although it will have a negligible effect on the county’s own finances, this line item will enable the school system to recover more than $5 million in state funds for “at-risk” schools that had been clawed back when the county’s operational allotment had dropped below a particular level.
Paisley also acknowledged that a majority of the commissioners recognized that they had “made a mistake” when they had dipped into the school system’s operational allowance to beef up the county’s capital outlay for the Alamance-Burlington schools.
“We dumped more money into capital, and we were short on the [statutory] formula,” he explained, “and that was out of compliance with North Carolina General Statute 115C-431.”
Although a majority of the commissioners may have been on board with this compromise, Friday’s proceedings revealed that this sentiment wasn’t unanimous among the five members of Alamance County’s governing board.
“Both boards – ABSS and the commissioners – realize we don’t have all the numbers, and we’ve decided to use the numbers that are available. We are in agreement, and we appreciate both boards working together.”
– Alamance County commissioner chairman John Paisley, Jr.
After the school board chairman announced Friday’s proposed compromise, commissioner Ed Priola spoke up to urge the two boards to hold off on their agreement.
“I’m opposed to this agreement at this time,” Priola acknowledged. “I don’t think we’ve considered all the factors going into the amount of this agreement.”
Priola went on to allude to some soon-to-be updated numbers that might’ve affected the statutory formula that would’ve determined the school system’s operational allowance had the aforementioned mediation process ended without an agreement. He also insisted that he and his fellow commissioners should take more time to consider other aspects of that statutory formula before “rushing to judgment” on the school system’s allocation.
Paisley ultimately overruled Priola’s suggestion.
“Both boards – ABSS and the commissioners – realize we don’t have all the numbers, and we’ve decided to use the numbers that are available,” Paisley declared. “We are in agreement, and we appreciate both boards working together.”
Priola and Paisley had previously voted together in opposition to the county’s adopted budget, which a bare, three-member majority of the commissioners – vice chairman Steve Carter and commissioners Pam Thompson and Kelly Allen – pushed through on Monday.
The new budget relies on a 2.5 cent hike in the county’s property tax rate as well as an $11 allocation in savings in order to cover a $16.9 million increase in outlays from the county’s general fund. Among other things, the new budget used these additional funds to ratchet up the county manager’s proposed allocation for the school system’s operations by about $11.3 million.
Friday’s agreement will require the county to come up with some additional revenue to bankroll the $4 million increase in the school system’s operational allowance. Although $1.3 million of those funds can simply be transferred back from the sheriff’s office, the commissioners will have to find some other source for the remaining $2.7 million – a figure that equates to just over a penny on the property tax rate.
Rebecca Crawford, the county’s budget director, informed The Alamance News that it remains to be seen where the commissioners will find the source for the additional $2.7 million in outlays.
“That will be decided at the next meeting on July 7,” she said after Friday’s joint meeting adjourned.
Paisley insisted that his board’s vote on July 7 won’t be a mere do over of last week’s divisive decision to pass the county’s next annual budget.
“The budget stands as is,” he insisted. “The tax increase and everything else stands. We just have to do a budget adjustment.”
At this point, neither the school board nor the commissioners have voted in open session to approve the agreement.
The school board has taken the position that it doesn’t need to hold a formal vote to approve the agreement [See separate story in this edition].
Meanwhile, the county attorney contends that the commissioners attended to this formality when they met behind closed doors on Thursday.
“My position is that my board approved the settlement offer I later made to the schools in closed session,” Stevens elaborated in response to a question from the newspaper on Tuesday, “and that settlement will be reported and entered into the minutes from the special meeting when those minutes are recorded.”
A full copy of the proposed agreement can be viewed HERE.
Read the newspaper’s editorial page views on whether the two boards need to vote on the agreement: https://alamancenews.com/approval-with-no-votes-huh/
