A significant number of parents, students and others came to Monday night’s meeting of the Alamance County Board of Commissioners to plead the case for higher spending for the Alamance-Burlington School System to avoid job cuts.
But at the conclusion of public comments, board Chairman John Paisley told the audience that ABSS had missed the state-mandated deadline of May 15 for delivering its proposed budget.
“As of this minute, I have not received anything. We just don’t have it,” Paisley said.
On Tuesday, Superintendent Bill Harrison attributed the missed deadline to a miscommunication between his office and County Manager Heidi York.
“We felt we had delivered it, but there was evidently miscommunication,” he said. “I knew about the deadline, and we intentionally worked towards that having our Board approve the budget on ... [May 14].”
Harrison, a former ABSS superintendent who was tapped as interim superintendent two months ago following several months of financial and other troubles, said that he also was not aware of all of the requirements for supporting materials.
The budget proposal from the school board requests an additional $10.34 million above the county’s allocation for the current fiscal year, a total of $59.17 million for fiscal 2024-25, but would cut $7.5 million of items in the current year’s budget that were paid for with federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funding that is expiring.
Positions for school instructional specialists, bus coordinators, physical education, art and music teachers would be cut.
Jenny Faulkner, interim public information officer for ABSS, explained in an interview Tuesday that the job cuts in the proposed budget were based on an approach of not filling vacant positions caused by attrition or retirements.
“These efforts are designed to reduce positions but not people,” Faulkner told the Times-News. “For example, the reduction line of student support positions is to not fill positions that are currently vacant, or not filling positions when people leave or retire.”
The budget also reduces some types of positions to match what the state will pay for, so for instance some school instructional specialists will “return to classroom teaching positions that match their licensure areas,” Faulkner said
Haw River resident Camille Mikkelsen implored county commissioners at Monday’s meeting to reject the spending cuts, which she said would severely hurt students, parents and the county’s economy for years to come.
“The budget that Dr. Harrison will give you is ‘fiscally responsible,’ meaning it cuts back on spending now, but that doesn’t mean it’s fiscally responsible for the future,” Mikkelsen said. “It does not meet student needs now. It does not meet teacher needs now, and it will ultimately diminish Alamance County — its economy and business — as well as education.”
Mikkelsen also called for a building study to address the issue of mold remediation in school facilities. Last summer toxic mold was found in many school buildings across the county.
“We really need to fund a joint building study in order to get all the information,” Mikkelsen said. “You need to agree to fund it because otherwise our kids are going to continue to get sick from mold.”
Ebony Pinnix, mother of a Pleasant Grove Elementary School student, echoed Mikkelsen’s sentiments. Pinnix said the water at Pleasant Grove Elementary was shut off Monday due to infrastructure problems.
“We are here today asking you to fund a comprehensive building study,” Pinnix said. “When you find out [the cost], we are asking you to honor it and create some generational investments.”
Walter M. Williams sophomore Sawyer Jones told the commissioners that there is not enough support staff and too much teacher turnover.
“This year, recognizing a gap in our support system, I started Pathway Academy to aid incoming freshmen students at Walter Williams High School with peer-assisted academic and career planning,” he said. “Please find a way to increase the funding for the positions that are being cut.”
Other highlights of the ABSS budget proposal include: A request for an additional $2 million for salary and retirement benefits, an additional $6.8 million requested for sustaining operations and technology services, and an additional $1.57 million that the school system is legally required to send to local charter schools based on their enrollment growth.
The commissioners will hold a budget work session on Thursday, May 30, at 10 a.m. in their meeting room on the second floor of the Alamance County Office Building in Graham.
On Monday, June 3, they will hold a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. at the Historic Courthouse, 1 Court Square in downtown Graham.
