The Alamance-Burlington School System’s funding request took center stage once again at the second of the Alamance County Board of Commissioners’ budget work sessions on June 10.

County Manager Heidi York presented a printout of the school administrators’ written answers to questions that the commissioners at the first work session on May 30.

Interim Superintendent Bill Harrison has requested an ABSS budget of $59.17 million for coming fiscal year — an increase of 27%, or $10.43 million, in county funding even while cutting nearly $7.6 million worth of spending due to the expiration of federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funding. Harrison has said that many of the budget cuts will lead to the elimination of teaching and instructional support positions in the schools.

Commissioners’ questions covered a range of topics, including the ABSS request for an additional $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.

ABSS Chief Operations Officer Greg Hook said that $415,000 of the technical support and equipment funding is earmarked for the replacement of 25% of the Google Chromebooks in the school system.

“Our current view is once we use a Chromebook for four years, it needs to go out of the schools,” Hook said.

Hook said that $700,000 of the requested $1.4 million increase in operational costs was earmarked for preventative maintenance: $550,000 for HVAC systems and $150,000 for roofs.

A complicating factor is that ABSS is currently struggling to recruit and retain qualified HVAC technicians due to competition with the private sector, Hook said.

“We have seven total HVAC positions with three vacancies,” Hook said. “If we could find qualified applicants, what we would do is preventative maintenance. … So the problem is, in this market with state salaries, we’re not able to match the private industry.”

Hook also said the school system is projecting energy costs to increase 112% due in part to running HVAC units in school buildings during the summer months to prevent a repeat problem of toxic mold like the school system had to address last summer.

Also Monday, County Finance Officer Susan Evans made a presentation on the county’s fund balance.

“We have not actually had to dip into any of that fund balance savings,” Evans said.

Evans said the county is projecting revenues for the coming fiscal year to be around $211.2 million and expenditures to be $207 million.

Evans added the revenue projection does not take into account the $10 million provided by the American Rescue Plan Act.

“We have to have those funds spent by the end of December, so we want to go ahead and get those moved over to the general fund,” Evans said.

The commissioners are expected to adopt their FY 2024-25 budget during their regular meeting on June 17.