More distressing news from the school system | Eastern North Carolina Now

We have yet again another “misrepresentation” by our school system.   This time it is over why school board meetings have not been broadcast for over two years. 

In the October 27 edition of the Washington Daily News it was reported by reporter Holly Jackson that the reason board meetings have not been recorded was because the County Commission did not fund recording the meetings.  She reported:  “Cheeseman (the Superintendent) explained that at one time Board of Education meetings were filmed, but because of budget cuts during the Covid-19 pandemic, video recordings stopped.  During the 2020 budget cycle, county commissioners voted to no longer pay Walker (who had been filming the meetings) and Beaufort County Schools did not have money within their budget to pay him…”  That is materially false.

The truth is that there were ample funds in the budget provided to the school system by the County Commission.  The school system just chose to spend the appropriations on other things.  This distortion of the truth is an age-old misrepresentation. 

The fact is, the Beaufort County Commissioners have two ways to fund schools, by state law.   They can appropriate funds by lump sums per fund or they can appropriate funds on a line-item basis.  Beaufort County simply appropriate local funds to broad item known as the current expense fund and capital outlay fund.  The school board may then spend those funds as they deem fit except, they are restricted in how much they can transfer from one fund to the other (typically about 15%).  Within each fund they can move funds to a specific object code to be able to play for what they deem necessary.

The money to provide a sound system would typically come from the Capital Outlay Fund, while expenses to pay personnel to operate the equipment would typically come from the Current Expense Fund, or covered by salary funds, which could be current expense or state funds. 

So, the truth is the reason the filming was stopped was because the Superintendent/BOE chose to spend the money for other things, then tried to blame the County Commission.  That shell game is as old as the hills in government finance.  And “Covid” had nothing to do with this.  In fact, the School System reaped millions of extra dollars from Federal covid funds. The truth is, covid was a cash cow for schools, not to mention that millions of dollars were spent on salaries while students were not in school.

Commentary

This is yet another example of how dishonest this School Superintendent is.   He knows the truth.  He can’t plead “I didn’t know.”  He was simply trying to make the County Commission look bad.  But we will continue to expose the truth.

And another point.  One might point out that the way they arrange the seats at these school board meetings is yet another example of deception.  They use a larger than necessary arrangement that results in the camera being pushed far to the background, when they could devise a seating arrangement which would allow school board members to be more closely observed (i.e., facial expression, whether they are awake etc.)  There also is no reason for the Superintendent and Clerk to be seated at the board table.  They could be seated to the side and the camera moved when they speak.  Nor do we see the reason to edit the video, which apparently delays the posting by two or more days. These recording should be considered a permanent public record and editing them diminishes the authenticity of the record.  The posted video does not even have the disclaimer that they are not authentic recordings and have edited.  And finally, we fail to see how the hardware arrangement would not have included more than one camera, at least that shows those in attendance or the face of those addressing the board.

So perhaps this is not so much a matter of dishonesty as it is sloppy management and board misfeasance.  But either way, it needs to be corrected immediately, not two years later.