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- News Archives: 2010-2017
Hundreds Turn Out to County Budget Hearing
Our students deserve great teachers, updated materials and safe places to learn. Hundreds of people echoed that sentiment by turning out at the June 5 Guilford County Board of Commissioners public hearing on the budget. Commissioners will meet again to vote on the budget at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 19.
Students, parents, community leaders, teachers and other GCS staff wore red to show their support for public education. Others lined the street in front of the building carrying signs reading, “We CANNOT continue to do more with less,” or “Don’t balance the budget on children’s backs,” or “Our students are your future.”
Since 2009, the funding provided by the county for our operations has declined by more than $85 per student. With more than 72,000 students, that amounts to millions of dollars lost. As another example, the county’s funding to help maintain our buildings has gone from $1.22 a square foot in 2004 to just 16 cents a square foot this year.
This year, the board of education submitted a budget request to the County Commission that invests in our students and teachers, funds strategic initiatives and helps maintain our facilities. The county manager’s budget recommendation falls $24 million short of the board of education’s request.
Some commissioners have said the county cannot afford to find the district’s request. Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green addressed that issue during a media briefing:
“We need to change the conversation that I think is occurring in this county. Last year, folks were saying, ‘We are in dire straits and we don’t know where the money is going to come from,’ and there was a tax decrease.
“If we’d have just kept the taxes at the same rate, that would have been millions of dollars that could have gone to public education. And then that then multiplies itself again this year with the tax decrease that has taken place. And we could have used - and could certainly use – those monies for 14-15. That’s the first thing.
“Number two, a number of counties have talked about and been successful with a sales tax as a way to generate funds, so that’s something that we certainly ought to have a conversation around.”