Commissioners Agree to Joint Resolution | Eastern North Carolina Now

    On Monday, November 2, 2009, the Beaufort County Board of County Commissioners met for a rather uneventful meeting; however, with the School Board controversy still, as of yet, unsettled, one can rest assured that the issue of considering a joint resolution between the two boards continued as the issue du jour. The county commissioners are concerned that they may yet find themselves in another lawsuit dependent upon the whim of an unwise school board and their superintendent.

    The North Carolina General Assembly has enacted, long ago, legislation that allows school boards the right to sue county commissioners, and therefore the taxpayers - as defendants. The question that is being determined; is under what conditions will a lawsuit be rendered in the plaintiff’s favor. The Beaufort County lawsuit is currently setting legal precedent in the state of North Carolina. These legal questions have recently been settled in favor of the Beaufort County Commissioners and the Beaufort County taxpayers.

    What is left unsettled is how to handle the ADM (public school building funds) will be handled between the to boards. The Interlocal Funding Agreement, struck between the school board and a majority of the county commissioners, provides that the county commission will receive the ADM funds to pay toward the county's enormous debt service for recently built new schools. The school board forgoes the ADM funding in order to take advantage of the very generous Interlocal Agreement providing ample funding. The Interlocal Agreement is contingent upon the ADM funding, and without the ADM funding, the Agreement is in default (my opinion).

    It is the concern of the county commissioners that if the ADM funding is withdrawn by the state then we may suffer an untenable financing relationship with the Board of Education, therefore it is incumbent that the school board and the county commissioners continue a resolve to understand one another; hence the Joint Resolution between the two governing bodies.

    Therefore, the commissioners have voted to extend the language of a Joint Resolution, written by the commissioners, their county manager and their county attorney, to the Beaufort County Board of Education for their consideration.