What Are They Doing With Our Money? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Sam Hieb, who is a contributor to the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    GREENSBORO     It seemed appropriate that, on the eve of the April 15 tax filing deadline, Guilford County Board of Education member Jeff Belton would take a moment to provide a cautionary tale about government and taxes.

    "Think about what they're doing with your money. Think about what they're not doing with your money," Belton warned.

    Belton's comments came during the board's April 14 discussion and debate over Title I funding allocations for the 2015-16 school year. For the most part board members lamented that the federal pot of money wasn't big enough to help address Guilford County Schools' seemingly never-ending budget issues.

    "We've spent a lot of time on Title I because we're grasping for money everywhere we can," Belton added.

    Those who follow public school issues often hear the term "Title I," but do we really know what that means? According to the U.S. Department of Education, Title I — enacted in 1965 — is "the largest elementary and secondary education program, supplements state and local funding for low-achieving children, especially in high-poverty schools. The program finances the additional academic support and learning opportunities that are often required to help disadvantaged students progress along with their classmates."

    Putting it in layman's terms, it's a pot of federal money that school systems — or "local education agencies" as the Department of Education puts it — dole out to schools. President Obama's 2015-16 education budget includes $15.4 billion for Title I grants — an increase of $1billion.

    There are regulations — lots of them — regarding how Title I funds are doled out. School systems can, however, flex standards for Title I funding, allowing schools with poverty rates as low as 35 percent — as was the case with Wake County Public Schools — to qualify for Title I funds.

    Wake County, however, raised the threshold for Title I funding to 45 percent, claiming "the change in distribution is needed because the rising number of low-income students is forcing the district to reallocate the Title I dollars to the schools that have the greatest needs."

    Guilford County's poverty threshold was 40 percent, determined by the number of students receiving federal SNAP and food stamp benefits.

    But in February staff presented another form of data to be used in determining Title I designation. Instead of relying solely on food assistance to determine school poverty rates, staff suggested integrated Community Eligibility Provision data, which took into account other factors, such as students who are homeless or who are undocumented immigrants.

    "Putting more hands in the pot" — as Kelly Hales, GCS executive director of federal programs, put it — doesn't help when the "pot doesn't get any bigger."

    For the 2014-15 school year, Guilford County Schools allocated $13.5 million in funds to its 67 Title I schools. However, for 2015-16 school year, Title I funds have been reduced to $8.4 million.

    According to a GCS staff report, there are two reasons for the $5.1 million difference. First, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction has not yet provided GCS with its '15-'16 planning allocation. Second, the $3.5 million in "carryover funds" is not available because GCS spent those funds on Title I initiatives during the current school year.

    And to be fair, Guilford County is a unique school system in that it has two mid-sized cities — Greensboro and High Point, with their respective issues — within its borders.

    Hales' simple logic was defied, however, by her staff's complicated "poverty band" formula that grouped schools together, with poor schools getting more funds and some schools losing Title I status altogether.

    Some board members didn't appear to be grasping the issue. District 2 member Ed Price, who represents High Point, called for an adjustment in one poverty band from 70 percent to 69 percent "because I can remember the number 69 easier."

    District 5 representative Linda Welborn — who in recent weeks has taken an aggressive stand against charter schools — continually pressed staff members regarding how they came up with their poverty band calculations.

    "You can't tell me where this magic number comes from," Welborn said.

    However, some board members did grasp the relative simplicity of the situation.

    "We've got to take one pot of money and make sure it's distributed to students who need it," said District 7 representative Rebecca Buffington.

    In the end a confusing series of motions adjusting the percentages on the poverty bands ensued. The vote on one motion was 5-5 — meaning it failed — while another motion failed 9-1 before one finally passed by a 7-3 vote.

    As a result, staff will have to recalculate Title I allocations for all the schools in the adjusted poverty bands and report those numbers to the board at a later meeting, meaning the issue is still not completely resolved.

    As much as I disagree with Linda Welborn on many issues, maybe she had it right. Perhaps the numbers school staff presented are "magic numbers" that are not meant to be understood by board members or — even worse — by the public.

    Think about what they're doing and not doing with our money, Jeff Belton advises. After watching the Guilford County school board hash out Title I allocations, I've given it plenty of thought.

    And they're not happy thoughts: billions of dollars spent over 50 years on an education system, and somehow it's still not enough. So indeed we do wonder what "they're doing with our money."

    That said, I got an idea watching the Guilford Bounty Board of Education at work. And it wasn't pretty.