GASTON COUNTY, N.C.,None — Gaston County voters approved a $175 million school bond referendum in 2007 with the belief that it would fund new, state-of-the-art schools and high-tech classroom renovations.
Since then, student enrollment hasn’t increased as expected, and public school leaders say maintenance problems at their existing 54 schools are spiraling out of control. So Gaston County commissioners are leaning toward diverting the remaining money from the 2007 bond measure toward fixing what they’ve got, rather than building anything new.
“We don’t need (more) capacity,” said County Commission Chairman Donnie Loftis. “We need repairs.”
County commissioners and Gaston County School Board members debated the issue Monday during their annual planning session. For more than three hours, the discussion boiled down to a simple concept: the school system needs more money, and short of the unthinkable act of raising property taxes, the county doesn’t know how to come up with it.
“Where do you see the money coming from?” Commissioner Tracy Philbeck asked school board members. “You see the funding cuts the state’s made to the county. These (school maintenance) issues have to be addressed, so how do you see that happening?”
School board member Annette Carter said using the balance of the 2007 bond money for repairs may be the best solution.
“I don’t want my taxes to go up, and I don’t think anyone in this room does either,” she said.
Redirecting the money
Voters approved the 2007 bond measure nearly 2 to 1. County leaders said the $175 million would be used to build six new schools and four classroom additions, and renovate the Hunter Huss High media center.
Since then, $85 million worth of bonds have been issued. About $40 million of that is being used to build the new Stuart Cramer High School in Cramerton, scheduled to open in 2013 and accommodate as many as 1,500 students. Money was also used to complete the Hunter Huss media center.
The county has yet to issue $90 million worth of bonds. That, and whatever else hasn’t been spent, could legally be redirected to school maintenance projects, said County Attorney Chuck Moore.
“The recommendation of our bond counsel would probably be to go back and have public meetings to explain why we’re doing that,” he said.
School board member David Phillips agreed that communication would be critical.
When the 2007 referendum was pitched, school leaders projected the local system would see an increase of 16,000 students by 2017. But recent numbers showed enrollment has slipped by more than 1,000 students.
Officials say the new Cramerton campus is still needed to address overcrowding at East Gaston and South Point high schools, but building five other schools now wouldn’t make sense.
County commissioners have managed to keep from raising taxes for several years. But regardless of what the remaining bond money is used on, when they borrow the final $90 million, a tax hike may be unavoidable, said County Manager Jan Winters.
“It’s not free money,” he said. “Debt service on the bonds requires taxpayer reimbursement.”
Aging rooftops, leaky pipes
In the last two years, Gaston County has held its funding for the school system relatively flat, at more than $60 million. About 35 percent of the county’s 2012 general fund budget is going toward public education.
Increasingly, school officials are looking to the county for support. State and federal funding for education has dwindled in recent years. Gaston County Schools no longer receives any state funding for technology, for example, and has had to cut 421 positions since 2009.
But some of the most pressing needs are in building maintenance, said deputy superintendent of operations Jeff Booker. Fifty percent of the county’s 54 schools are more than 30 years old, and a third of those are more than 50 years old, he said.
All around the county, rooftops and HVAC systems are requiring penny-pinching patch jobs, and parking lots are cracking. A $1.2 million roof repair at Stanley Middle School should have been made six years ago, but there’s still no money to do it, Booker said.
“We are stretching the lives of our roofs to an extreme extent,” he said. “Our parking lots are in deplorable condition. Our maintenance folks do not like to say they work in maintenance. They work in emergency repair.”
Several commissioners criticized the school board’s decision last month to not close three aging schools. The decision would have saved $27 million over the next five years, and it went against staff recommendations that the buildings were outdated money pits that needed to be shut down.
By not making that tough decision, Philbeck suggested the school board has passed the buck.
“I think it puts your commission in a tight spot,” he told them Monday.
Commissioner Mickey Price said it also makes it tougher to justify maintaining $60 million in funding for the school system next year.
“Now you’re talking about us giving you the same amount of money and adding on maintenance issues for something you chose to delay,” he said.
School board members defended their decision and said they considered all the ramifications of closing and not closing the schools. But Price said one factor alone will end up governing every decision that’s made down the road.
“It’s all going to come down to money,” he said. “Plain and simple.”
WSOC
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