Column for September 14, 2006

The Johnston County Schools have been in the news a fair amount lately. The schools have reportedly done well compared to the entire state in SAT scores. The School Board, however, has not done so well. The students they are working to educate have shown more acumen than they have. As has been reported about the school board complaining about not getting all the money that they wanted for their annual budget. The county's Board of Commissioners voted to give them 149/150th of the budget the school board requested. There was early talk about a court battle over that last one million dollars of the budget.

The School Board at first refused to have a meeting with the County Commissioners to discuss any issues. This was the status quo for about a month. I tried to follow the story the best I could, in this paper and in other news sources. Just Friday I read that the School Board has finally agreed to meet with the Board of Commissioners. By the time this column runs, the meeting will already have happened.

Well, hallelujah! This should have been a "no brainer" from the beginning. Instead, the school system resorted to complaining, threats, and whining. They attempted to mount a media campaign for the last 1/150th of their budget. Apparently that spin campaign must not have worked out as members had planned. Now the School Board will talk directly and openly with the organization that "writes the checks" for their budget.

A month ago, the Board of Education passed a resolution to only "one on one" with the County Commissioners rather than meet at a scheduled open meeting this week. Two Board of Education members had the "spine" to stand up against this resolution, but were voted down. Larry Strickland and Donna White both dissented on the vote to be secretive.

I am not going to tell all of you how to vote in the next election, but I will certainly keep this knowledge in mind when going to the ballot box in November. Closed and secret meetings are not the normal thing to do and should only be reserved for matters of personnel confidentiality and legally sensitive matters. The same goes for special meetings. Other than that, all such meetings should be open to the public and on the record for all to be informed about the proceedings. There are regularly scheduled and open meetings for a reason.

One of the main reasons for wanting to boycott the open September 11th meeting was the excuse of The Board of Education having insufficient time to present its list of needs and concerns. That is perhaps one of the most lame, arrogant, and irresponsible excuses that I have heard in a long time. As with a child needing comfort and assurance, the School Board was subsequently guaranteed sufficient time and follow up meetings, as needed.

My opinion is that there is a procedure in place to handle financing the school system. The County Commissioners are elected to be the ones who decide how much money the Board of Education gets to spend, not the other way around. If the Commissioners have decided that this is the way it is going to be for now, then so be it. Enough of the whining. The Johnston County School System budget was set, now deal with it.

I would be more inclined to support increased funding requests when our Superintendent of Schools does not have a higher salary than the Governor of North Carolina. And when we are not paying for the education of students that are in our country illegally, Johnston County Schools stand at the top of the state in every metric, and wasteful expenditures are eliminated. It is, after all, our money that is funding the schools. Why should we as citizens demand anything less?

Either way, it looks like we may have another bond on the ballot in the spring of 2007. If all goes according to history, the bond will be passed and the Board of Education will get everything they wanted, anyway. I can't recall the last time a bond referendum was defeated. Get ready to open your wallets.