Asheville – After the Buncombe County Commissioners took public comment on the budget two weeks ago, the decision was made to raise the tax rate. Increasing it from 48.8 cents per $100 valuation to 49.8 cents would give the county $5,109,667 more to answer public outcry that teachers be paid more.
Chair Brownie Newman’s Struggle with Tax Increase
Chair Brownie Newman said he had struggled with the decision to raise taxes. One school bus driver, whose wife is a teacher, told how he could never dream of owning a modest house like those in the neighborhoods he services in Bent Creek. To this, Newman said the commissioners have very few options for garnering revenue, and this is mostly done by raising taxes, which directly increases the cost of housing. Housing was really expensive in Buncombe County, and many who now own a modest house are complaining that they can’t keep making mortgage payments.
Before the commissioners had to raise taxes to fund education again, though, Newman hoped two problems would be solved. First, for several years, local governments in North Carolina have had to set their budgets before the state budget is finalized. This is problematic because the state pays the salaries of most school employees, and the county is obligated to give locally compensated education employees the same pay raises. Proposals for teacher pay increases in the General Assembly are running as high as 10% over two years, so Buncombe’s tax increase had to cover that. The commissioners will just have to approve a budget amendment whenever the state budget is finalized, which may not be until after July.
Discussions with School Boards and Resource Allocation
The tax increase would give Buncombe County Schools (BCS) and Asheville City Schools (ACS) enough to raise teacher pay by 2%. So, before the state approves a budget, Newman said discussions with the school boards are in order. The commissioners can only approve how much money they will give to the schools, not how they will spend it. Newman said that of the 115 school districts in the state, ACS is ranked second in per-student funding. Buncombe County receives only half as much per student, and yet it provides a higher rate of supplemental pay for its teachers. “These different bodies have made very different decisions about how to allocate the resources they have to run their districts,” he said.
Commissioner Amanda Edwards pulled quotes from emails the commissioners had received and the public hearing that had been held on the budget. They indicated that the North Carolina General Assembly, by not providing enough money to public schools, was not doing its job, and therefore, the commissioners “were now having to ask the taxpayers of Buncombe County to do what is supposed to be done.” The commissioners had wanted to provide teachers with more than a 2% pay raise, but every time the commissioners raise the tax rate, constituents in her district have to sell off portions of the land that has been in their family for generations. “We cannot forget the burden,” she said, especially in Buncombe County, where wages are not commensurate with “the extreme cost of living.”
Edwards then called attention to the fact that the legislature had a $6 billion rainy-day fund. She said she wished education advocates had “joined the call” in lobbying for those funds to go to public schools. Instead, “what we have is Governor Cooper declaring a state of emergency in public education, and a good portion of that rainy day fund is going to support private school vouchers for families from extreme means of wealth.”
Edwards said the schools had been allowed to drift too long without right-sizing their districts to provide efficiencies. “Our schools are often the only place of safety for many of our children across Buncombe County and Asheville City schools. It’s where they go to get a hug, it’s where they go to get a warm meal, and we owe it to our children and the future of Buncombe County to ensure that we are working with our school districts to provide those efficiencies so that we can better serve those children.”
Commissioner Parker Sloan explained, “It’s important for the public to understand how we got here. This did not happen overnight. Our schools are in a staffing crisis, and that started in 2011, when the General Assembly became unified under one political party that does not appreciate democracy, and it sees education as a threat and the Teachers Association as a political football or toy. If they’re angry, then they feel like they’re making the right decision, and everyone loses, especially our children.”