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The Duplin County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education held a joint meeting on Tuesday morning, May 14, during which the discussion centered around budgets for the two local government entities.
Duplin County Schools Chief Finance Officer Dawn George reported that the school system has requested a 10.66% increase in its budget this year, to $11,066,000. “What that represents is the increases to our recurring costs, which includes the state-mandated increase in salaries of about 3%,” George explained. “Retirement will go up approximately 1% and health insurance will go up about 7%.”
The DCS budget also includes a requested 20% increase in property insurance, and a 14% hike in utility costs.
George shared that the general fund balance is $6.4 million, of which $5.2 million is restricted for continuing expenses related to the pandemic. “We also have about $4.7 million in our special monies and grants fund balance,” she said. “We normally don’t have a balance that large in there, but the CARES funding allowed us to charge our grant costs.”
All of the CARES funding is currently allocated to projects that are already in progress and should be completed in the next six months to a year, George said.
The school system’s request also includes capital outlay funding. “This year, actually over the past two years, our prices for contracted services, equipment, vehicles and repair parts have escalated very quickly,” George said. “It’s escalated about an average of 50% so our request this year does include an increase of $495,000, which includes $125,000 for athletic capital expenses and $370,000 for improvement to sites, capital equipment and vehicles.”
School Board Member Pam Edwards explained to the commissioners that “the state will not allow you to spend any money —absolutely none — on athletics. It’s all got to be funded locally.”
The $250,000 set aside for athletics has not changed since it was implemented in 1991, Edwards said, with $200,000 going to the high schools and $50,000 going to the middle schools. Any other funding comes from local sources like booster clubs and donations.
Edwards also shared with the commissioners that there are parking issues at North Duplin and Beulaville Elementary Schools. The DOT is hopefully funding the project, which may get underway this summer, depending on state approval.
Commissioner Jesse Dowe requested that the school system look into addressing traffic at James Kenan High School as well. “I’d like for you to do a study to look at that and see if there’s a resolution that can be done,” Down said. “There have already been a few accidents out there.”
School Board Chairman Brent Davis shared that the school board has reached out to several municipalities to see if school resource officers (SROs) could be provided by town police forces, to help alleviate staffing issues with the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office.
County Manager Bryan Miller gave an overview of the county’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. “Now is really an exciting time to be part of Duplin County local government,” he said, adding that the county has recently opened a new transportation center, as well as a new animal services center. A new senior and veterans services center should open this fall.
The commissioners have also approved the detention center project, which it’s currently seeking grants and loans to build. The project will cost $42 million.
“One phrase everybody wants to hear: no tax increase,” Miller said. “That was one of our goals going through this, and I think initially, we achieved our goal of no tax increase.”
There will be an across-the-board 5% increase in employee pay, with a 3% cost-of-living adjustment and a 2% merit increase.
“When we started the budgeting process, we were about $11 million over budget, that meaning our expenses were about $11 million more than our revenues were,” Miller stated, adding that the budget committee cut over $8 million that county departments had requested.
“A lot of the capital, the debt service, was paid using our unrestricted general fund monies,” he explained. “Right now, the Board of Education has about a $6 million fund balance out of … sales tax. So instead of using the general fund monies, we used the monies that were dedicated for school capital.”
The county also used a process of putting more emphasis on accuracy of funds received, rather than following trend analysis, said Commissioner Dexter Edwards.
“The pattern’s always been overestimate your cost and underestimate your income, so you have extra money,” he said. “We’ve done that, year after year after year.”
The county commissioners and school board will hold another joint meeting in about six months’ time. The date for the next meeting has not yet been set.
