Schools Move to Keep State Aid (NC)

June 16, 2010

A neat piece of budgeting could help Johnston County Schools keep about $10.5 million in state funding.

Last week, school leaders asked county commissioners to push about $4.6 million in June funding into July, the start of a new budget year. That move will allow the schools to meet a state requirement that counties spend a certain amount on their schools to qualify for extra state funding.

At a county commissioners meeting last week, school board chairman Larry Strickland made the unusual financing request on behalf of his board. "We’re here tonight to do something that I don’t think has ever been done by the Board of Education — that’s to give you some money back," he said.

School leaders said frugal spending and some unexpected revenue over the past 11 months had allowed the schools to enter June with enough in savings to pay the bills.

In his proposed budget, County Manager Rick Hester had recommended giving the schools $49.6 million in fiscal year 2010-2011. But Strickland said the cut of almost $7 million would have disqualified the schools from receiving about $10.5 million in state funding meant for "low-income counties." The school system is eligible for the state funding only if the county budgets at least $51.4 million for the coming fiscal year, Strickland said.
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At the meeting last week, Strickland and Superintendent Ed Croom told county commissioners to keep the schools' local funding for June. The county distributes its school funding month by month, and the allocation was about 8.3 percent of the 2009-2010 budget for Johnston County Schools.

The school system could afford to decline the money because it was running a small budget surplus this year, Strickland said. The state returned about $2 million in sales taxes the schools had paid, fines and forfeitures in the courts yielded more money than expected for the schools, and budget cuts and reorganization freed up cash, he explained.

At its meeting on June 8, the school board voted unanimously to ask county commissioners to hold on to the June allocation. The move could allow commisioners to grant the schools a bigger budget next year without digging for more cash.

"It does enable us now to appropriate some more monies to reach … that trigger number" for state low-income funding, said Hester, the county manager. "We weren’t going to be able to reach it– we couldn’t reach into fund balance, and we couldn’t raise taxes."

And even though budgets have been tight during the recession, school and county leaders think next year could be worse.

"I have some major concerns about the next 12 months," Croom said. "We have a huge trainwreck coming … I can tell you that this [year] may be the easy one as we go ahead."

County commissioners were scheduled to adopt a budget on Monday, after The Herald went to press. Check theherald-nc.com for an update.

Money for nonprofits?

Leaders of the county’s nonprofits also awaited word of the county’s budget decisions. Many, including the Boys & Girls Club, Johnston County Industries and the Council on Aging had no allottment in Hester’s recommended budget.

A committee of three commissioners was to have recommended funding levels for nonprofits, but that committee decided it would be best to leave the decisions to the board as a whole.

"We said, ‘OK, this committee is not going to recommend, we’re not going to pick and choose– we’re going to put it all up to all the commissioners," Commissioner Tony Braswell said.

Johnston County Industries, a group that gives handicapped people work, had requested $95,000, but its early budget line read ".00," as did the line for the Council on Aging, which had requested $245,000.

"Everything that we are asking for is to simply sustain the units that we have served," said Jane Schirmer, director of the Council on Aging.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wade Stewart said his board wanted to give as much funding as possible. "All of us wish that we could double what you got last year," he told leaders of Harbor Inc., which provides aid, including shelter, to victims of rape and domestic violence.