Leaders of Alamance Community College and the Alamance-Burlington School System made their annual budget presentations to the Alamance County Board of Commissioners during a budget work session on May 30.
Ken Ingle, president of Alamance Community College, presented a budget request of $6.26 million for fiscal year 2024-25, which would be an increase of more than 37%, $1.7 million, over the $4.56 million the county provided the community college for the current fiscal year. The county managers recommended ACC budget of $5.41 million would still represent an increase of $848,000, or 18.6%.
Commissioner Craig Turner asked Ingle and Andrea Rollins, the college’s vice president of business and finance, the rationale behind their request for additional funding. Rollins cited the high inflation of the past two years.
“Some of the increase we are requesting is just putting us at current costs,” Rollins added. “It’s not that we would be spending it on anything new. We would spending it on door knobs, mini-blinds, window replacements — things like that.”
ABSS Interim Superintendent Bill Harrison presented the school system’s proposed budget of $59.17 million, a 27% increase over the school system’s current fiscal year budget.
“I come to you again with a pretty big ask,” Harrison said. “I know it’s a huge ask.”
While requesting an increase of $10.43 million, the school system is simultaneously cutting nearly $7.6 million, including the elimination of teaching and instructional support positions.
“These were really, really difficult cuts,” Harrison said.
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction currently funds the school system based on its enrollment of 22,766 students. However, the state has projected a decrease in student enrollment of 581 students for the coming school year, which means ABSS is facing a significant cut in funding, Harrison said.
Commissioner Steven Carter complained about the lack of specificity in the school system’s budget proposal.
Harrison, a former ABSS superintendent, said the details that need to be reported had changed from his previous tenure with the school system.
“I apologize for not satisfying the need for details,” Harrison said. “You’re always in trouble when you assume, and I assumed I could simply submit the type of budget we used to.”
Harrison broke down the expansion budget considerations, which includes $1.4 million for technical support and equipment replacement, an operational increase of $1.4 million and an additional $500,000 for Alamance Virtual School.
Commissioner Bill Lashley questioned the cost of spending an additional $500,000 on Alamance Virtual School.
“I think that number is not accurate, because there are several things that go into making that number what it is,” Lashley said. “I don’t think Alamance County taxpayers should have to pay for the virtual school if it’s offered by [N.C. Department of Public Instruction].”
Harrison stated current enrollment of the Alamance Virtual School is 210 students. Harrison agreed that the state provides funding for virtual school students but administrative costs must be taken into account.
“A lot more money than $500,000 is being spent on the virtual school,” Harrison stated. “The virtual public school carries a cost to the school system.”
Commissioner Craig Turner asked ABSS Chief Operations Officer Greg Hook about the significant increase in operational costs, and Hook cited inflation.
“We failed to recognize inflation across the years,” Hook said.
Chief Academic Officer Revonda Johnson acknowledged that 17 of the county’s 38 schools have been classified as low-performing and said that if one more ABSS school is added to the list of low-performing schools, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction will label the entire school district as low-performing, which will lead to stricter oversight by the state.
“Our hope is we’re going to see some folks come off [the list of low-performing schools],” Johnson said. “We’ve got some great principals who have taken it to heart what our real job is — it’s the kids.”
Carter leveled his criticism at the school system based on its struggle to deliver detailed financial information to county commissioners regarding its budget proposal. Carter asserted the school system needs to rebuild public confidence by hiring a top-notch chief financial officer.
“We want to have confidence in what you provide to us, and I think we all know that’s not been the case,” Carter said.
The Alamance County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the budget on June 3 at the Historical Courthouse in downtown Graham beginning at 6:30 p.m.
The Alamance County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to reallocate school bond funds to repair and upgrade the Hugh M. Cummings High School stadium bleachers.
Greg Hook, chief operations officer for the Alamance-Burlington School System, told the commissioners the total cost of upgrading and repairing the stadium bleachers would be roughly $325,000. County officials had already allocated $32,000 to Cummings High School for other capital projects, which brought the total school bond allocation approved by the commissioners to $357,000.
The bleacher project will include installation of kickboards and foundation improvements that will bring the bleachers on both the home and visitor sides of Cummings’ football stadium up to state building code standards, Hook said.
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction requires that bleachers comply with state building codes, which dictate bleacher structures containing more than five rows be anchored to a continuous structural footing. A concrete slab at least 4 inches thick must also extend under the full footprint of bleacher structures and have all-metal supports affixed to the concrete foundation. In addition, bleachers must be made of all-steel construction and designed to provide lateral bracing in the support frames in both directions.
During Thursday’s budget work session, Hook said the bleacher upgrade project would include the installation of metal beams that will attach to the concrete footers beneath the structure. Those metal beams will be affixed to the vertical metal supports that are part of the original structure.
Hook said that the repairs should be complete in time for the Cummings Cavaliers football team’s home opener versus Eden Morehead on Aug. 23.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actress who said the two had sex.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” an angry Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”
Judge Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11.
Trump is expected to appeal the verdict.
The falsifying business records charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years behind bars, though Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not say Thursday whether prosecutors intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge would impose that punishment even if asked.
“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history,” Bragg said after the verdict, “we arrived at this trial and ultimately today in this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.”
The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his White House pursuit.
Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election.
Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought.
After the verdict, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said in television news interviews that he did not believe Trump received a fair trial and that the team would appeal based on the judge’s refusal to recuse himself and because of what he suggested was excessive pretrial publicity.
The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race to porn actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about her story of having sex with the married Trump in 2006, when his third wife, Melania, was pregnant.
When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction.
Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services.
Trump denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued at trial that his celebrity status made him an extortion target.
Defense lawyers said hush money deals to bury negative stories about Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family, not political ones. Prosecutors brought witnesses who said Trump didn’t care what his wife thought about the stories.
Trump did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000 hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump. Trump denies that affair.
The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all.