They came asking for money for students, but much of the talk was directed at another coming county expense - the new $36.6 million justice center, jail and courthouse renovation.

“The better our school system is, the less need we have for a justice center,” Veterinarian Bill Snyder told county commissioners during the public hearing on the Haywood County budget Monday. Snyder is head of a parent group known as BEST (Better Educated Students Today) that is trying to improve the local school system.

“We are embarking on the largest capital expense project in the history of the county, and we still have schools that aren’t air conditioned,” said Austin Swanger, a former school and health board member.
Swanger pointed out that county manager Jack Horton was quoted in a newspaper story as saying capital expense projects were usually delayed during tight budget years, but that the county was heading full bore on the new justice center.

“The bottom line is that we can’t put off our kids until tomorrow, so let’s put our money in our kids,” he said, pleading for more education money.

This year’s Haywood County’s budget public hearing followed a pattern that has become familiar over the last decade: school officials, more than any other group, use it to plead their case for more funds. This year, more than 125 people attended the hearing. More than 90 percent were associated with the school system.

In this tough budget year when the state is threatening to withhold up to $1 million of tax money from Haywood County and commissioners have committed themselves to holding the tax rate at 61 cents per $100 of valuation, the original school budget request did not fare well. School officials had requested an 11.8-percent hike in current expense funding to $10.4 million. County Manager Jack Horton recommended a 4.4-percent hike. At a work session earlier in the week, commissioners had informally decided to raise the current expense budget to $9.99 million, a 7.5-percent hike that guaranteed all locally paid teachers, aides, custodians and other school employees would be retained.

“We appreciate what you have done to preserve these local positions,” said Superintendent Bill Upton. But he, like others, said the rest of the system’s full request was not about providing frills. Rather, it would provide necessities.

One point of contention was capital expenditures. County and school officials agreed in 1996 that the school system would get $600,000 per year in capital expense revenues for repairs as long as the portion of sales taxes slated for schools and the state Average Daily Membership monies were used for debt payments. However, this year the county included only $400,000 for capital expenses for the schools.

“We made that agreement in 1996, and I checked with former commissioners Ed Russell, Grover Bradshaw, former school board chairman Robert Cathey, and school board members Sam Freeman and Neal Ensley. They all confirmed the agreement,” said Assistant Superintendent John McCracken.

“I do encourage you to look for the revenue to restore that $600,000,” McCracken said.

Another speaker, Pediatrician Steven Walls, pleaded with the county to meet school system requests for funding that would help end the use of corporal punishment. He said school officials were ready to implement a program to provide principals with alternatives to corporal punishment - including an in-school time out in elementary schools - but that funding shortfalls could derail the plans.

 

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