Over the objections of the Board of Education, Transylvania County Commissioners voted to keep more than a million dollars in funding for two playgrounds and a wrestling building at Brevard High School rather than shift it towards infrastructure projects.
Despite having the cash in the county coffers now, commissioners said the capital project funding must wait until November, when the long-awaited school bonds are sold.
Board of Education Chairman Kimsey Jackson called the commissioners’ decision “ludicrous.”
“To spend $1.2 million dollars on a wrestling facility doesn't make sense when we need roofs and other things,” Jackson said.
The decision ran counter to the Board’s request for two changes to the project funding plan. The plan, previously approved by both bodies, contains the infrastructure projects requested by the Board but uses projected funds from the school bond sale rather than existing funds, according to the county.
County Manager Jaime Laughter explained that any changes to the plan require staff to restart the planning process.
“If we were to stop at this point and try to rescope, we would be delaying the bond sale…if we lose the window for October…we would have to delay until all the way to the spring,” Laughter said.
The Local Government Commission, which handles the sale and delivery of the bonds, prefers projects that can be completed within three years of receiving funding. Changing the scope of the approved funding plan would push projects past the three-year deadline, according to Laughter.
The timeline “does not factor in for additional pre-planning; it anticipates going straight to design and trying to get to construction,” Laughter said. “We would have to then figure out when we would have that scoping product refinished and then look at three years from that juncture to be able to gauge when we could sell bonds.”
The county implemented a sales tax in 2018 aimed at raising money for the repairs, the first tranche of which – $50.8 million – is expected to be available in November. The long-awaited bond money will fund more than $90 million in repairs and replacements the county’s schools desperately need, according to county staff.
The items requested by the Board of Education – new boilers, an HVAC project and dozens of other repair projects – will be set to start construction after bond funds are made available in November, according to county staff.
The clash over school repairs that have been needed for almost a decade was the latest development in a contentious relationship between the school board and the commission that controls funding.
School-related issues dominated almost the entirety of Monday’s commission meeting.
A subcommittee
Last month, the Board of Education urged county commissioners to create more transparency in how the county spends money meant to repair and renovate schools.
The plea came in the form of a letter calling for the formation of a new joint committee of two members each from the school board and the commission, the County Manager, County Finance Officer, School Superintendent, and School Finance Officer.
The committee’s meetings would be open to the public. It is unclear how often they would meet.
“As is common practice in other counties, both boards, the committee and the public will know how much money is available for construction, where the money comes from, and how the committee recommends that the money be spent in future years,” the letter read.
County staff presented two options for a similar subcommittee on Monday night. Commissioner Larry Chapman questioned why the county should not have full oversight of the bond money rollout.
“They seem to – pardon my French – constipate the system,” he said of committees.
Commissioners agreed to vote at a later date on whether to form a committee.
Overcommitment
At the Monday meeting, commissioners also delayed a vote on whether to pay over $400,000 in unbudgeted costs for an HVAC project. According to county staff, the Board of Education made a “human error” when it signed contracts that they did not have funding for.
They are short by about a million dollars, according to the county. That’s in addition to another overcommitment of about $100,000 the county is dealing with at Pisgah Forest Elementary School for a piping project.
The HVAC projects take place at three different schools: Brevard Middle School, Brevard Elementary School and Davidson River School. Some funding was approved by commissioners in 2023 but not enough to cover the entirety of the projects.
The Board of Education planned to use $2.4 million in American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) money — federal funds provided to schools during the pandemic. Even with the federal money, the county fell $1 million short in funding the three projects.
In June, county commissioners approved $412,121 to address the shortage. The Board of Education then asked for another $471,377, but on Monday, commissioners voted unanimously to wait and see how the Board of Education addressed school funding before giving them any more money.
“There are policies in place, but they were not utilized,” Laughter told commissioners. There are state guidelines in place to prevent overcommitment, including requiring multi-year projects such as this one to be approved by the commission, but the Board of Education did not follow them, according to Laughter.
Laughter, in an email to BPR News, that new policies are in place to prevent any overcommitments.
“Projects over $50k are paid directly by the county for education projects on behalf of TCS which provides a check point when the contracts are received from the schools to verify them against the budget approved in the county finance office,” Laughter wrote. “It adds another opportunity for verification that there is funding approved for a contract before the commitment is made. Projects under $50k are still processed only at the school side.”
County Commissioner Teresa McCall made a motion to delay the vote until hearing from the board about “how they plan to move forward with project management and if they are willing to utilize the county’s experience.”
Chapman agreed and pushed for the project management to be in the hands of the county.
“Let the school board teach kids, educate kids,” he said. “Give it to us, give us the responsibility for the projects…if it doesn't happen, we’re accountable.”
Board, commission agree on asking state for funds
The two bodies agreed on one initiative: County commissioners approved the Board’s $62 million grant application for construction and repairs of the 65-year-old cafeteria and gym at Brevard High School.
The money would come from the Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund grant from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The county would have to provide $3.2 million for the project if the grant is approved.
