THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9506210534
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Currituck County officials hope to persuade state legislators to let the county keep more than a half-million dollars in small-schools funding that could be lost because of a ``technicality'' and a burgeoning student population.
County finance director Daniel F. Scanlon said Monday evening that a Currituck contingent is heading to Raleigh this week to try to hold on to $538,392 that has been used for 17 teaching positions, among other items.
School and county officials have been aware for awhile that the money given to small and ``low-wealth'' school districts would be in jeopardy once enrollment reached the 3,000-student cap.
Next year, 3,062 students are expected to be enrolled at Currituck's four elementary schools, one junior high and the high school.
Last week, however, a new obstacle emerged in applying the already allocated state funds. The Department of Public Instruction notified the county that it was being accused of using the state supplemental funds to supplant local dollars.
``We've got a half-million dollars that is being held in limbo on a technicality,'' Scanlon said.
Although legislators have allocated the small-schools funding since the 1990-91 school year, it wasn't until last year that the General Assembly came up with a mathematical definition for supplanting, Scanlon said.
The formula looks at what the county is putting into the current cost of educating each child. If that drops steadily or is below 95 percent of the cost for the previous three years, the county is accused of supplanting, said Mandy Farmer, the allotment manager with the Department of Public Instruction.
The new provision should prevent county officials from lowering local contributions once they start receiving the state monies, Farmer said.
In 1992-93, Currituck County officials - at the request of the Board of Education - shifted $800,000 from one fund to another to air condition several schools. Because of that realignment, it appeared on paper that the county did not appropriate enough into local current expenditures, Scanlon said.
The local current expenses fund pays for actual classroom instruction. Capital outlay, the fund to which the $800,000 was moved, is used for buildings and repairs.
``The law is very specific that this is for local current expense funds only,'' Farmer said of the small-schools funding.
Currituck's shift of money to pay for the school projects was made at the recommendation of the Institute of Government in Raleigh, a state agency that gives advice to local governments, officials said.
``What we did was on sound advice from the state. That's what we followed,'' Scanlon told an audience of about 65 people at a Board of Commissioners meeting Monday night.
A majority of those people had come to support the schools during the discussion and a subsequent public hearing on the county's 1995-96 budget.
Some were concerned that teachers would be sacrificed if the county suddenly lost its small-schools funding.
But Dr. W.R. ``Ronnie'' Capps said Monday evening that other areas, such as field trips and supplies, would go first.
``We're not going to give up our teachers and our school nurses and people who make a difference to our children,'' Capps said.
The county Board of Education is asking for a $68-per-student annual increase for the upcoming fiscal year. It now spends $1,626 in local funding for each child it educates.
If the county budget is approved as written, the schools will receive almost $5.2 million of the $16.5 million general fund. Commissioners will meet at 7:30 tonight at the Senior Citizens Center to vote on the budget.
The county's real estate tax, called an ad valorem tax, is expected to increase 9 cents, to 65 cents per $100 valuation. The increase will pay the debt service on bonds being issued to build a new high school in Barco.
One resident worried that any more tax increases would cause financial hardships for some citizens, particularly elderly residents on fixed incomes.
Manley West of Moyock asked if a proposed 1-cent sales tax initiative sponsored by Rep. W.C. ``Bill'' Owens of Pasquotank County could be used to offset some ad valorem tax increases. The bill has yet to be voted on in the General Assembly.
If county voters approve a referendum, the additional sales tax would have to be earmarked for school construction.
The chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Ernie Bowden, said the additional money would most likely be used to fund other school projects that weren't satisfied by the $16 million bond referendum that passed in 1993. by CNB