Scotland County Schools Board of Education to challenge $200K funding cut

LAURINBURG —The Scotland County Schools Board of Education is pushing back on a funding cut in the Scotland County Board of Commissioners’ most recently approved spending plan for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

In a special meeting held on Friday — just three days after commissioners voted 4-2 to approve the budget that includes a $200,000 cut in school funding — school board members unanimously agreed that the appropriated local funding was not sufficient enough to operate the upcoming school year and voted to challenge the Scotland commissioners’ decision.

Commissioners Tim Ivey, John Alford, Bo Frizzell and Darwin Williams voted in favor of the General Fund budget proposal of $54,821,549, while commissioners Darrel “BJ” Gibson, and Whit Gibson voted against it. Commissioner Clarence McPhatter was not present for the vote.

Scotland County Schools BOE chairman Rick Singletary said the board’s latest decision was a turning of the tides from their original agreement.

“It’s just evident that a majority of commissioners at that time felt the need to cut it to $200,000 but commissioners Whit Gibson and Commissioner BJ Gibson did not just go along to get along and they were a part of that Liaison Committee,” Singletary said.

The Liason Committee is comprised of members of the school board and county board of commissioners. In those committee meetings, both parties agreed on a $10 million appropriation, which was later approved via vote 6-1 by the Scotland County Board of Commissioners with Commissioner Alford voting against it. The commissioners later voted to decrease the funding to $9.8 million.

“I voted against when we approved the $10 million … I’ve been around long enough to know that we were going to be in trouble this year,” Commissioner Alford said during the public hearing held June 25 on the 2024-25 budget hearing.

During the school board’s special meeting Friday, each board member spoke out against commissioners going back on their agreement.

“I just think that we’re in a tough place. To cut $200,000, it doesn’t seem like much but I think that we’re missing the fact that the liaison committee agreed upon it and both boards and now it appears that we’re reneging on that agreement,” Singletary said.

“A promise is a promise,” School board member Carolyn Banks said. “They said that this was what they were going to give us and this is what we expect and even though it still falls short of what we need, I feel like we should go ahead on and take whatever steps we need to take to be sure that we get was promised in the original agreement.”

Board member Jason Clark said “Up to like a month ago we were under the understanding that it was going to stay like we agreed ( with the $10 million) and to change in the last month … I think the school system was just an easy way to find that funding and it was kind of disappointing the way it was done.”

Loretta McNeil said it’s important to note that the school board did not ask for an increase in funding, although it was needed.

McNeil said the school district “managed to work with an under amount … The concern from me is to take from our babies to put elsewhere and not see the priority is our kids are our present and not just our future.”

“There was an agreement that has been advocated between the liaison committee and the county commissioners … I think that that should be honored … Trust erodes between the organizations,” said School board member Gary Mauk.

Mauk said that it was “unfortunate that we find ourselves in this current position and we need to advocate for the needs of our students and our staff in a very very high-needs district.”

Scotland County Schools was again designated low-performing after the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released the 2022-23 report cards for school districts throughout the state. Low-performing districts are defined as districts that had greater than 50% of schools identified as low-performing. For the 2022-23 designations, there are 25 low-performing districts in North Carolina.

Summer Woodside, who has served on the school board since 2014, said that after reviewing minutes from the previous meetings, she has seen a pattern of decline in support from the county.

“They used to say that they had a desire for our school system to be in the top third in the state when it comes to total local funding and so I pulled the Public School Forum’s finance study reports that we used to use a lot in liaison committee and noticed that back in 2014, we were 22nd in the state in total funding and today, according to the 2024 report we are 41st in the state,” Woodside said.

Woodside said that the school board has “consistently agreed to go down over time.”

In the past 10 years, the county’s appropriation to schools has decreased. In 2015, the county appropriated $10.8 million. The following year the number dipped to $10.5 million and then to $10.3 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year. Since 2019, the appropriation has stayed around $10 million save for 2021, when the appropriation dipped to $9.8 million, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I just think about $200,000, it doesn’t seem like a lot in a big bucket of money but it can make a lot of difference. It can change our teacher supplements. It can change our class sizes. It can change athletics,” Woodside said.

Board members Vicki Jackson and Tony Spaulding had “hoped” that the boards could reach an agreement.

“I know that there has been a lot that’s been heard on both sides. My hope is, I hope that we can do what we initially agreed upon … The priority is the children in our district and wanting to make sure that we are all doing all that we can to make sure that they have the best education possible,” Jackson said.

“I’d hoped that the work that had been done by the liaison committees would have been respected and funded especially since it had been voted upon and agreed by both boards after the recommendations were taken back, yet here we are … There’s got to be some way we can make this work for the benefit of the children and the staff of both the school district and the county,” Spaulding said.

Spaulding asked that each board remove personal thoughts about things out the way and “remember that we’re trying to support opportunities for the children who can’t help us make the decision that left with us.”

Singletary said if the school board accepted the budget cuts it could mean cutting pre-kindergarten teachers, teachers assistants, athletics supplements for coaches and athletic equipment. The school board has already frozen the hiring of mental health workers, according to the chairman.

“It’s sad to even consider how important education is in the world but specifically in Scotland County with our economic struggles and our unemployment rate. [The] only way for our people to get out of poverty is through education,” Singletary said.

“A generation will pay for what they have done to the young and the old,” the chair added. “There will be a price to pay generations to come if we don’t take care of those two entities.”