Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have long had infrastructure needs. In a Board of Orange County Commissioners meeting on September 29, the two school boards requested alternative funding and discussed the hiring of a private consultant to continue development.
More than 2,500 teachers and staff and almost 20,000 students work and learn in Orange County school buildings, according to Chair of the Orange County Commissioners Renée Price, though she said the buildings are outdated.
“We’ve got 32 K-12 school campuses across the county within the two school systems, and more than 50% of the school campuses are actually 50 years old or older,” Price said.
Orange County often does not qualify for state funded capital and grants unlike other districts in North Carolina since it is considered a high wealth county. To address the county’s school needs, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) created the School Capital Needs Work Group.
Commissioner Jean Hamilton chaired the work group.
“We are not alone dealing with our aging school buildings,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton said although the work group recognizes there is $500 million of need, current funding sources fall short of what the school system requires. She added the county funding model is based on available funds and debt capacity rather than school needs, restricting the county’s ability to quickly and adequately fund school construction.
“We need to do this work for our children and our staff, and we want to do it the most efficiently we can,” Hamilton said.
During the joint school board meeting, Hamilton emphasized the work group’s main recommendation: hire a third-party consultant to broadly look across both school districts. The improvements suggested by the consultant would be implemented into a 10-year plan to address school facility needs.
“Some of the items that came up in our group is to have the consultant give us input about project coordination and communications, looking at existing program evaluation, looking at what our needs are,” Hamilton said. “We already know that resources are limited, and together we need to look for ways, as county commissioners, to make sure we have not overlooked something.”
In addition to that challenge, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board Member Riza Jenkins discussed a separate funding issue her school district is facing: a dwindling unassigned fund balance.
“A fund balance, in layman’s terms, is the cushion or safety net that school districts maintain for emergencies, sort of like a ‘rainy day fund.’ The problem is, our fund balance is running out, and we need to address this now before it’s too late,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins said because CHCCS used their fund balance to pay for staff raises during the last fiscal year, their unreserved fund balance won’t cover the same expenses for future budget years.
“Let us be clear: Because of the action we took, based on the direction you gave, we face the possibility of cutting services and positions a year from now that will directly impact students. We can stop that conversation right now. Let’s work together and make good things happen for the students of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County by using available county resources to fill the gap that our staff, students and families were promised would be filled,” Jenkins said.
County Commissioner Earl McKee said he believes, however, the two school systems are well-supported financially.
“I’m just not comfortable that I’m sitting here hearing that we’re not doing all that we can when both systems are the number one and number three funded systems in the states. There’s a disconnect for me,” McKee said.
The two school boards will meet again with Orange County Commissioners in spring 2023, as the groups will discuss more specific funding plans ahead of the 2023-24 county budget being created.
Photo via WTOC.
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