KENANSVILLE — The Duplin County Board of Commissioners met Monday night, with an overflowing crowd of teachers, parents and students in the auditorium of the Duplin Commons Agricultural Complex.

A group of only 300 were allowed in the room for the meeting with hundreds more standing outside. Both those inside and out were prepared with signs against possible program cuts in the Duplin County Schools programs. Over 28 individuals signed up to speak to the board during the scheduled public comment time and the public hearing on the proposed 2009-10 budget.

Before any presentations or discussions were given, board chairman Cary Turner came down to address the gathered group and the board. Turner stated that many that had gathered had come armed with misinformation and had been given false stories that school programs were being cut.

Turner said because commissioners were unaware that school athletic and JROTC programs had been funded through local money, the line item in the newly restructured local funding process proposed by the commissioners overlooked those two areas.

The chairman was referring to information provided to Duplin educators last week by school officials, saying that next year, the JROTC programs would be eliminated, coaches would not get paid and teachers would lose their supplements, all because of a change commissioners had made in how they would be allocating funds to the school system in the upcoming fiscal year.

Turner then moved to reallocate funds that had been designated as Operational Support Services in the proposed line item budget for education to allow funding for these programs. The reallocated funds would total somewhere in the neighborhood of $550,000, with $300,000 going for athletics and $250,000 for JROTC.

The public outcry was for funding for teachers, teachers assistants, nurses, counselors, social workers, clerical and assistant principals. All but one speaker urged the commissioners to put aside their childish, political and petty differences to fund these positions by reallocating funds from the $7 million proposed in the budget in the Operational Support Services line item.

These line item funds could only be used for building maintenance, fuel, utilities and some custodial and maintenance staff. According to county attorney Wendy Savori, that was all the local board was required to fund by state law.

Many others also came to speak on behalf of the instructional and non-instructional supplements that would be lost under the proposed budget. Again the public input was to fund these programs.

The commissioners did not reallocate any additional funds but did vote to meet with the Duplin Board of Education as soon as a joint meeting could be arranged.

Requests from the crowd for everyone to attend Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting brought thunderous applause from the group.

Superintendent Dr. Wiley Doby expressed that he would attempt to make arrangements on Tuesday morning to change the venue in an attempt to accommodate the expected large crowd and would supply that information to the media.

See Wednesday’s edition of The Sampson Independent for a more detailed and updated story from both meetings.

To contact Billy Todd, call 910-592-8137 ext. 117 or e-mail sigeneral@myclintonnc.com