Commissioners Light Up Bright Beginnings Debate
The request to place a $10 million funding grant for Bright Beginnings on the agenda for next week’s board of commissioners’ meeting, submitted by Commissioners Chairman Jennifer Roberts at the request of Commissioner Vilma Leake, two Democrats, set off an e-mail exchange between several commissioners, in addition to an earlier reply from Republican Commissioner Bill James.
The chain starts with a missive from Commissioner George Dunlap:
Jennifer, I am concerned that such a request is premature. We have not seen the School Boards adopted budget yet and this might send the message that the school board need not make it a part of their annual operating budget request. To take this action now puts us on the hook for 10 mil, when we have not explored whether or not the program could be streamlined to serve the same number of children for less than 10 mil. We have not looked at their delivery model, nor have we had any discussions with CMS about possible tradeoffs or additional areas of consolidation that might produce additional savings. If there is one program within CMS that I believe is worth saving, it is Bright Beginnings and I plan to do all that I can to help save the program, but I do not agree that this is the way to go about doing so.
Which is odd, considering it was Dunlap, a Democrat, who originally got the grant talk for Bright Beginnings rolling at last week’s commissioners meeting. In any event, his reply drew the following from Commissioner Harold Cogdell, a Democrat:
I echo many of George’s sentiments. I think he makes some legitimate points. This appears premature.
Followed by some explaining from Roberts:
[Commissioners Vice Chairman] Jim [Pendergraph, a Republican] and I will be meeting with [school board chairman] Eric Davis and [school board member] Tom Tate on Tuesday morning. They can tell us how they feel about this type of grant. This is not premature, Eric and Pete [Gorman] have told me they have to vote Bright Beginnings up or down on Feb 8 in order to give teachers enough notice to seek out other jobs. Pretty sure they have to vote it down at this point, so if we don’t at least offer to try to support it this early, it will go away. Will let you know if they think differently, and I don’t know if they will accept it, but I am willing to at least try to save a program that I know has far reaching consequences if eliminated. Vilma feels strongly as well. There is more too–Will call you and or fill you in on more on Tuesday. Thanks for keeping an open mind.
Which prompted a reply from James:
For me the problem is that when the Commission offers to provide money for something that is ‘about to go away’ it eliminates any sort of CMS prioritization and protects stuff that CMS says is a low priority (they say it to anyone except the public and media of course). How about protecting those 11 closed schools for example? No motions about that.
CMS has made the decision that Bright Beginnings is a low priority (compared to teachers) and agreed to cut it by about ½. That is there decision to make.
So we are to offer them a ‘grant’ that prevents those hard decisions? And in a few months when we give them money for k-12 and it WILL be short because of state budget cuts the first thing to be pointed out is that 500 teachers could have been saved if the BOCC had not relented to pressure and restricted that $10 million. CMS will say ‘their hands are tied’ by the County and we will be responsible for hundreds of teacher layoffs and will, once again, be the ‘bad guy’.
Plus, I think it is questionable to provide a county grant for pre-k at the expense of k-12 when k-12 is about to be cut to the bone to the state. The NC Constitution says we and the state are responsible for k12 (not ‘pre-k’).
I know you all will do what you want but ultimately handing out dough to CMS (or promising it at this point outside the budget process) to protect what they call a ‘low priority’ program is not a good way to start a budget season to them. Why would Vilma do it for BB and not do it to save those 11 schools?
We are (once again) getting played. Gorman and co have told these people to pressure the Commission. Obviously because they see us as weak targets in this budget war.
If BB is important to CMS they can make their own decisions to keep BB and fire another 500 teachers.
That is not a road I think any of the nine of us want to travel unless you want to open Pandora’s proverbial budget box.
And from Roberts:
Bill, I am well aware of your stand on this. Thanks for the recap. Sometimes it is helpful for the community to have these points debated in public.
And another volley from James:
I have no problem with the ‘debate’ Jennifer – but it should be at CMS not at the County Commission.
This, it seems to me, is a political ploy to allow those that want Bright Beginnings to have a third or fourth chance to rant at the Commission (they have already ranted at CMS on several occasions to no avail).
Clearly, Bright Beginnings supporters have had their public hearing (many of them). Yet, money doesn’t grow on trees and hard financial choices have to be made.
Either way – the County has zero business discussing it outside the county budget public hearing which is in May (clearly not now). Now if CMS wants to make Bright Beginnings a top priority and specifically asks us for the money (above teachers and teacher assistants) then fine BUT CMS (the School Board) should clearly state that Bright Beginnings is more important than ANY other dollar they receive. Since Gorman has already said that isn’t the case it really makes little sense to have the debate outside the manager’s budget and the budget hearing. There isn’t even a CMS budget or a County Manager’s budget at this point. In essence, this stunt is providing proof that the rules aren’t the same for everyone but that the budget process can be ignored if you are part of the political in-crowd that Democrats owe their allegiance to.
And I would point out that the COUNTY already funded 100% of Bright Beginnings (it is already included in our allocation and built into the current tax rate). CMS, in an attempt at financial manipulation, moved the Bright Beginnings funding from County dollars to Federal dollars in an effort to protect it last year. Now that it is on the Federal side of their budget ledger they are cutting it but you and Vilma want to ask the Commission to fund what we have ALREADY forced taxpayers to fund? This is beyond fiscal irresponsibility. We already paid for BB with County dollars but Vilma want to pay for it again with a second dose of County money? How many times do we have to buy the same real estate? How long does CMS get to continue to manipulate its fiscal books to abuse County taxpayers?
I can’t decide if this is just one of Vilma’s ill-conceived bone headed political moves (of which there are many), your attempt to capitalize on her angst by using the funding as a vehicle to get the extra $15 million tax increase you want for CMS prior to budget discussions, or you paying her back for her Chairman’s vote of December (and her infamous ‘list’ of demands in exchange for her vote).
Not sure what the “infamous ‘list’ of demands” is all about, but it looks like next week’s commissioners meeting should be an, um, interesting one.
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