This summer, Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston put out a proposal for school funding that didn’t go over well with some.
The proposal was made as Guilford County adopted its 2023-2024 fiscal year budget – in which about half of the county’s money went to funding education and paying off debt incurred by Guilford County Schools.
Alston’s proposal was this: Going forward, the cities of Greensboro and High Point, along with the county’s towns, should help pay the cost of running the schools.
In the past, Guilford County has been the local government responsible for funding the school system’s operations and new school construction, however a recent change in state law now allows for cities and towns to help with that funding.
While allowing it, the new law doesn’t require it – which means, Greensboro, High Point and other municipalities in the county will take a whole lot of convincing.
On Monday, August 7, Alston said it’s true that cities and towns have had a lukewarm reception to his idea so far, but he added that discussions on the matter haven’t really been conducted yet.
“After the State of the Community address on September 20, those discussions will get underway,” said Alston.
Alston plans to meet with the mayors of the county’s cities and towns and see to what degree they can help out when it comes to the costly endeavor of funding the schools.
“Think of it as a ‘One Guilford’ initiative,” Alston said.
Over the last two years, Alston has been attempting to get all the local governments in the county to think in terms of what’s good for the county as a whole.
Alston said he’s very well aware of one argument that he has heard and one that will come up in the talks this fall: Residents in the county’s cities and towns already pay county taxes, so they’re already contributing to funding area schools. If those cities and towns use their own tax money to give more to the schools, many argue, that would not be fair to the residents in those cities and towns who would be paying for the schools twice.
“I know there will be some pushback because of that,” Alston said, but he added that strong well-funded schools will benefit all parts of the county.
He also noted that the new law makes this funding stream possible and said that Guilford County government is already doing all it can to fund Guilford County Schools.
Nothing new other than additional taxes. Beware.
Yeah, cities funding county expenses is a Trojan Horse. One step away from combining city and county governments into “One Guilford”. Let each deal with their own issues. Then no need to gerrymander the county so the City Council can take over the county.
Try cutting costs and reducing taxes for a change. We are already dealing with inflation and recession is about to hit us. Less is more from government.
Skip wants to claw back the property tax that the cities and towns get. Cut the county spending on every frivolous thing and bloated projects. The economy is on edge about a recession and you should be tightening the belt
Hey, we voted this clown car load with it’s driver into office. Enjoy what you get from the circus.
Sounds like Skip wants to duck his responsibility’s. The schools are the counties responsibilities. Maybe he wants to confuse the people about who is responsible. If he is willing for a small town to contribute more for their schools to insure better quality education they might be willing.
Isn’t it better to have one source for taxation rather than splitting the source? Wouldn’t control be better rather than being able to point fingers at some one else?
Per-pupil expenses are fairly easy to predict and benchmark. This will make the process of funding them look even more like a Rube Goldberg machine.
They got BILLIONS in tax money after the bond was approved. They get MILLIONS in budget money every year. How in the HE DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS do we get this idiot to understand that NO, NO, NO is what we are saying to his CONSTANT search for more money? Does he not understand English?
NO, Skip. NO.
doesn’t the lottery fund education as well? How much is guilford countys cut? just more tax and spend politics. hold the education department accountable for teaching and not just passing kids along to pad their numbers.
Combing anything related to government only gets more expensive. Doesn’t anyone remember when the city and county schools were separate not so many years ago. The argument to combine them was to save money and less administrative costs oh yeah how did that work out. More overhead costs, several times as many administrators now as then, schools falling apart and students who can’t do grade level work then they graduate without being able to read or do simple math. What a system we have.
If GCS wants to be taken seriously several things must happen:
Downsize that top heavy administration.
Get back to basics and focus on “The Three R’s.”
STOP the liberal indoctrination BS. Teach them morals & ethics, not who to hate and what social issues to support.
Kids with a true moral
There’s one book written in 1611 that outlines everything they need as a foundation for life. It is widely available, yet not only seemingly ignored, but even banned in some regards. You invite the after school Satan club and shun the Lord.
I have discovered that the onlybthing most school boards care about today is a feather in their cap, bragging rights on how much grant money they scammed us out of, recognition for this or that, keeping up with what is trendy, and indoctrinating the next generation of loyal servants to vote & pay taxes. All done under the guise of helping children.
Do better!
EVERYONE in ALL of the cities and towns in Guilford county pay county taxes. Property taxes, sales tax, utility taxes, etc. I do see the problem that the citizens voted for the school bond but not the sales tax increase to pay for it but there should have been a backup plan B explained if this happened before the vote not after.
No way the smaller towns should agree to this. I will vote against any and all on my council that support this effort by Skip. This is just another way the county can justify spending less money on the “county” schools that are growing by leaps and bounds. I would like to see three school districts again – Greenboro City, High Point City, and Guilford County Schools.
It has always been very strange to me that people will vote for a tax increase (school bonds) to pay more and more for government schools, thinking, apparently, that their children and others’ children will be “educated” without input from their own family structure or that of the community. Now people are beginning to see what government schools have been “teaching” their children. Very naive and, hate to say it, but lazy. We have wanted somebody else to do what is our primary responsibility. Let’s find a better way. This time, it’s not rhetoric, the lives of children and future human beings IS at stake.
Skip just never changes. Always scheming for more money to spend. Here’s the thing: he is always resistant to joining in Greensboro proposals for joint projects with joint funding. Skips makes is crystal clear he is in charge of the county and is rarely warms to Greensboro proposals. With the latest record tax increases added to multi-billion dollar school bonds, the cities in this county should tell Skip to pound sand.