BCS budget gets scrutiny

Published 1:17 am Wednesday, May 4, 2011

By Betty Mitchell Gray

The Beaufort County Board of Education asked county leaders Monday to maintain funding for school construction projects in the 2011-2012 fiscal year and for a current-expense budget that only includes increases in fixed costs such as energy and employee benefits.
Despite raising concerns about some of Beaufort County Schools’ spending requests, one member of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners praised school leaders for the quality of information he has received from the county’s public schools.
“This is more and better information than I’ve ever had from the school board,” said Commissioner Hood Richardson after receiving two documents detailing attendance figures at the county’s public schools and organizational charts listing certified and classified employees at all public schools.
School leaders presented commissioners with a proposed local current-expense budget of $13.4 million for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, an increase of $233,704, or 1.7 percent, over that budget for the current fiscal year.
Of $13.2 million in the school’s 2010-2011 local current-expense budget, $12.4 million came from county appropriations. The remaining funds came from fines and forfeitures and other sources.
The 2011-2012 budget “represents level funding,” except in increases in energy costs, retirement and hospitalization costs for school employees and a projected increase in payments to area charter schools because of an increase in county funding, BCS Superintendent Don Phipps told the commissioners.
School leaders also presented a $1.5 million capital-outlay budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, an amount equal to the school’s construction budget for the current fiscal year.
“There are a lot of projects on this list that aren’t sexy projects, but there are things that need to be done to protect the safety and integrity of the buildings,” Phipps said.
Some larger construction projects were delayed pending the results of a study of school buildings and future construction needs that is expected to be completed later this month, Phipps said.
Facing a tight budget year of their own, commissioners scrutinized the school’s list of construction projects in a line-by-line review of proposed spending for possible savings.
Those items attracting the most attention from county leaders included $95,000 for a new activity bus, $95,000 for a new roof on the gymnasium at Bath Elementary School, $87,500 in spending on security upgrades at most of the county’s schools and $60,000 for the fresh-water pump system at Washington High School.
Some commissioners asked to see with their own eyes some of the recommended construction projects.
“I want to see what’s going on,” Richardson said.
That tour is expected to be scheduled in the next few weeks.
The commissioners also asked for an inventory of roofs on the county’s school buildings so they would know what the school system’s future roof replacement needs will be.
This is the first public-schools budget request to the county commissioners since the end of a multi-year agreement between the county and BCS that guaranteed a certain amount of funding for the schools.
That agreement was the result of a lawsuit brought by the school board against the county over a lack of funding for the schools.
Phipps told the commissioners the funding called for in that agreement has helped the county’s public schools avoid massive job losses that are currently facing some public school systems.
In Pitt County, school leaders there say the state’s 2011-2012 budget could result in the elimination of 270 jobs. In Johnston County, school leaders are preparing to lay off 123 employees.
Over the past six years, the county’s share of funding for its public schools has increased from about 18 percent in the 2005 fiscal year to about 22 percent in the 2010 fiscal year, according to information presented at Monday’s meeting.
“The state and federal government have shifted the burden of funding the schools onto the counties and property taxes,” said County Manager Paul Spruill.
Beaufort County ranks 24 among the state’s 100 counties for current-expense appropriations per student in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, according to information presented by Spruill at the meeting.
Beaufort County appropriates $1,785 per student for current expense as compared to a statewide average of $1,730 per student, he said.
Beaufort County also ranks 13 among the state’s 100 counties when measuring capital outlay appropriations per student for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, he said.
In other business, the commissioners unanimously approved disbursing $375,766 to BCS for the fourth-quarter payment for school capital projects and gave the go-ahead to repair windows and floors in the S.W. Snowden School gymnasium and constructing up to 600 bleachers at Washington High School.
All school-board members attended the meeting.
County Commissioner Stan Deatherage, who was asked to travel to Raleigh to learn the effects on the county of the budget recommended by the N.C. House of Representatives, did not attend the meeting.

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