Schools hope to pay state sans local money

Interim Halifax County Administrator Tony Brown said Tuesday that the county’s school system has not yet asked the board of commissioners for helping in repaying more than $850,000 it owes to the state.

Brown said that is because, at least in part, that board Chairman Gene W. Minton “made it clear to them (school officials) it’s not the county’s responsibility, not the taxpayer’s responsibility, to pay it back.”

The money in question is more than $800,000 in state funding the school system spent over the previous two budget years, money which it was not entitled to use. During those two years no audit was completed for the school system, which was one of a number of problems incoming Superintendent Geraldine Middleton shortly after she took the job last summer.

She also found the present year’s budget, formulated by the staff and approved by the school board prior to Middleton taking her present position, had not adaquately allowed for cost increases.

In October she went to the Halifax County Board of Commissioners, explaining the school system did not have enough money to pay all its bills and meet payroll that month, so the board advanced $250,000 of its annual allotment to the school system.

Middleton also cut several non-teaching positions, decreased hours of other workers, and called in the North Carolina State Auditor to look at problems with the school system’s accounting and financial records over the past two years.

As for the state money the system overspent, that totaled more than $800,000, and with interest has accumulated to more than $850,000. The school board fired financial officer James Sweet, and the system has been working with state officials to try to clean up its books and get audits completed for those two years, which it did in December.

School officials had said last week they anticipated going to the board of commissioners to ask for the money to pay the state at the Monday, Feb. 4 meeting, but Brown said that was not the case.

He said the commissioners have told Middleton they are not inclined to help the school system pay the money because the deficit came about as a result of poor management by school employees.

Although school officials were not available for comment Tuesday, and people answering the phone would not take messages for those officials, Brown said after meeting with school and county officials he understands Middleton is exploring a number options.

Among those, he said, might be asking the state to forgive the interest that has accrued on the money, asking the state if some budget categories that used local money those years were eligible for state spending to reduce the total owed, and asking the commissioners for a loan that the school system could eventually pay back to the county.