Alamance County’s commissioners have agreed to allocate an additional $7.3 million in funding for building repairs and maintenance to the Alamance-Burlington school system in order to settle a dispute resolution process that the school board invoked in late June.
The commissioners released the details of this agreement on Tuesday afternoon. They had a closed session during their regularly-scheduled meeting Monday night, after which no announcement was made.
The terms of the agreement call for the county to appropriate an additional $7.3 million in capital funding, or 51.5 percent more than the $14.2 million in capital funding than the commissioners had originally agreed to allocate to ABSS when they voted in June to adopt a budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year. Under the agreement, ABSS will receive a total of $21.5 million in annual capital and long-range capital funding for the fiscal year that began July 1.
The commissioners have agreed to “distribute and/or reallocate from General Fund Transfer, ABSS capital reserves, and/or ABSS school bond interest” and other funding sources for seven specific capital projects, which include:
- $850,000 to install safety vestibules at five schools, as ABSS had requested in its long-range capital improvement plan (CIP) for 2026-27;
- $2.9 million for three paving projects that ABSS had outlined in its CIP;
- $2 million to replace teacher laptops;
- $1.5 million from unbudgeted capital reserves for a roofing project at B. Everett Jordan Elementary School;
- And three driveway repair projects, at Alexander Wilson Elementary School, A.O. Elementary School, and E.M. Holt Elementary School.
The school board held a special-called meeting Tuesday afternoon, for the purpose of entering into closed session to discuss routine personnel matters, as well as pending litigation. School board vice chairman Dan Ingle made no mention of the settlement in reading the motion to enter into closed session.
Nor was the settlement – which had been signed Tuesday by the commissioners’ chairman, Kelly Allen and school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves – announced after the school board returned from a two-hour closed session, reconvened the open portion of the meeting, and voted to adjourn after approving the customary personnel report Tuesday afternoon.
While the school board was behind closed doors with its attorneys, Rod Malone and David Noland of the Tharrington Smith law firm in Raleigh, Alamance County attorney Rik Stevens appeared in the school board’s meeting room at Central Office, dropped off a manila clasp envelope, and left.
There was no change in the commissioners’ original allocation of $58.8 million to ABSS for current expenses for the 2026-27 fiscal year, according to the agreement the county released Tuesday afternoon.
The commissioners and school board had spent a full day of mediation on June 22, before announcing an impasse on the amount of funding to be allocated to ABSS for current expense funding, while “holding open” the amount of funds to be allocated for capital outlay, as the agreement notes.
The school board had voted 7-0 on during a special-called meeting on June 16 – less than 24 hours after the commissioners voted 4-1 to adopt their budget for 2026-27 – to invoke the school funding dispute resolution process, based on its contention that the county’s allocation for current expenses, capital outlay, and capital improvement funding were not sufficient.
The commissioners had originally voted to allocate a total of $72,983,876 in current expense and capital funding to ABSS for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
With the additional $7,324,572.88 in capital funding that the commissioners have agreed to allocate to ABSS, the school system will receive a total of $80,308,448.88 in county funding for both current expenses and capital expenses this fiscal year. That represents an increase of approximately 12.3 percent from the total of $71,527,351 in county funding that the school system received for the previous 2025-26 fiscal year.
As part of the agreement, the school board has released any claims it may have against the county related to current expense, capital outlay, and CIP funding for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
Neither board has publicly voted to accept the agreement, even though the terms of the agreement state that it shall become effective upon approval by both the commissioner board and school board.
County won’t raid its general fund to cover settlement with school system
It may seem like Alamance County’s commissioners had a moment of repentance worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge when they extended a seven-figure peace offering to the Alamance-Burlington school system this week.
But this apparent burst of generosity isn’t as lavish as it appears, according to Alamance County’s manager Heidi York.
York acknowledges that county isn’t having to go out of pocket to cover the $7.3 million that settlement sets aside for the school system’s capital needs.
“For the capital funding, there is no new funding being appropriated,” the county manager explained to The Alamance News. “Rather, we will make available to ABSS funding that is already designated for them through capital reserves and bond interest earnings.”
York went on to observe that the budget which the commissioners adopted in June included a capital outlay of $4,820,500 to fund the school system’s building maintenance and repairs. The budget also earmarked $9,400,000 for the school system’s capital projects.
“Those total capital budget allocations will not impact the county general fund,” she added. “The $5,776,800 set aside in the agreement for vestibules, paving projects, and teacher laptops is a blend of already-designated general fund transfer, schools capital reserves, and accrued interest on ABSS school bond dollars. Some of these projects will be paid for using reallocated, unspent capital reserve funds like the remaining balance of $1,547,772.88 that we will make available in this fiscal year as part of this agreement.”
The commissioners, for their part, have not taken any action in open session to authorize this agreement with ABSS. Nor is any such action necessary, according to Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens.
Stevens observed that state law allows the commissioners to pass along instructions to their legal counsel in closed session. He added that the five-member board did just that on Monday when they huddled with him to discuss the school system’s legal challenge to the allocations in the county’s current annual budget.
“I received in closed session on Monday night the authority needed to make an offer to settle the outstanding claims with the schools based on terms that had been earlier negotiated with the schools through their attorney,” Stevens explained to the newspaper on Wednesday. “The schools then met on Tuesday and, I presume, gave their attorney similar authority to accept our offer, in closed session. Based on that offer and acceptance, the agreement is finalized.”
