Roof woes head to Raleigh

A group of Clinton City Board of Education members made their made way to Raleigh Tuesday afternoon to hold what they called vital talks with state legislators on funding aid for the school system’s critical roofing needs.

Those discussions occurred after the Independent’s Tuesday deadline, but the gist of those talks, superintendent Dr. Wesley Johnson said, were going to center around the financial the system is facing.

The trek to Raleigh came as a recommendation to city schools officials following a meeting with county commissioners a few weeks back to go over the system’s roofing situation. Johnson and his staff were seeking direction from county officials on funds Sampson might provide after the system was denied an $8.5 million grant request from the Needs Based Public School Capital Fund.

Commissioner representatives didn’t provide much financial hope, and the suggestion was made to seek assistance from the state by way of Sampson’s legislators.

“We are taking the entire Board of Education to meet with Sen. Brent Jackson and Rep. William Brisson, who are our local delegation for our House and our Senate,” Johnson acknowledged in a phone interview Monday. “This was suggested by the county commissioner chair and vice chair (Jerol Kivett and Sue Lee, respectively) when we met with them last month to go over our roofing needs. They suggested that we go meet with Sen. Jackson and and Rep. Brisson.”

And that’s exactly what the city delegation did Tuesday, a report of which will appear in Saturday’s Sampson Independent.

The meeting comes on the heels of the grant denial, which was brought to the board’s attention in October by John Lowe, executive director of technology and auxiliary services for the city system,

“We did receive our denial letter from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction,” Lowe said at that meeting. “It was addressed to Dr. (Wesley) Johnson from our state superintendent of public instruction. There were a lot of applicants for new school construction, which always gets priority, and so we did not get our request.”

Currently, the city school system faces over $11 million in roofing repairs, impacting every school facility except the new Clinton High with some structures being in potentially dire straits, school officials have noted. The denied request sought $6 million for roofing and approximately $2.5 million for HVAC needs.

While regretful that the grant request was denied, Johnson said Monday he was hopeful the funding to assist them will be there, even if not right now.

“We were hopeful that our county commissioners were going to be able to provide a little more assistance, and I don’t think that, that’s over,” Johnson stressed. “In fact, I’ve talked to a couple of county commissioners more recently, and they all want us to continue the discussion in the 2025 (budget) year. But again, going to meet with Sen. Jackson and Rep.Brisson was at their recommendation, and so we’re hopeful that money can be set aside (at the state level).

“A lot of times what will happen is that, if there are local needs, instead of being put in the state budget, sometimes, your local delegation is able to add it, as a standalone deal or item,” he added. “So, that’s what we’re hopeful might happen… that it could be added as a standalone item, maybe in next year’s biennium budget.”

While their initial grant request from the Needs Based Public School Capital Fund was rejected, Johnson said he remained confident heading into the meeting and on getting funding.

“I’m hopeful, more than anything, that they’ll see the needs that we have and be willing to help us out,” Johnson stated. “First off, I want everyone to know that I really do feel that our county commissioners are doing a lot for both Clinton City and Sampson County schools. It’s just unfortunate that the needs are so great in not only the schools here, but really, in all of North Carolina. So much so, that it’s almost impossible, without some type of major state bond referendum, that I’m not sure any of us are going to be able to implement the changes needed in aging school facilities.

”I probably should mention that there is some money that has been set aside for what North Carolina calls the Needs Based Public School Fund,” Johnson added. “But the vast, vast, majority of those funds, I’d say 95 percent, is being utilized to build new schools. That’s helpful, and we’re hopeful to, maybe, get some of that money in the not so distant future as well. But, it still doesn’t take into account the general maintenance and upkeep of buildings that we have in our community of Clinton City Schools.”

In Tuesday’s meeting, Johnson said, the focus would be to ‘pitch to legislators on the severity of the needs addressing the system’s greatest current need — roofing assistance at Sampson Middle School.

“Well, we’ve got a lot of pictures that we had shared previously with our county commissioners, and we’ve got some videos of how things are,” the superintendent said. “Our biggest thing is just making sure that we’re keeping our buildings, in repairable shape. I guess our concern is that it’ll get to a point that there’s kind of no turning back. So it is important to us, why, because we may not see a new Sampson Middle for years and years and years. That’s why it’s important to us that we keep it in as good possible shape as we can for the students that are going to be coming through there, probably for the next 25 years or more.

“I think that’s our biggest need right now, to help everybody to see the importance of putting a new roof at Sampson Middle School,” Johnson stressed. “I would say that’s probably priority item number one, and it’s just unfortunate that, to put a entire roof on Sampson Middle School, I mean, you’re talking about $4 million.”

He also noted that part of Tuesday’s pitch would be the importance of resource aid since the system gets around $400,000 yearly from the county for capital outlay needs.

“When you only receive, and again, we’re very, very grateful, but when you receive around $400 or $420,000 a year for capital outlay, think about what that means,” Johnson said. “With a $4 million roof that we need at Sampson, you would have to save that money you get from county commissioners, and not spend a dime of it for 10 consecutive years. Then, can you imagine what would happen, 10 years from now, with the roof at Sampson Middle and then how the other needs of your district would accumulate when you’ve not done anything but hold that money for 10 years.

”So, I guess that’s kind of the want or the pitch is, we need resources,” he added. “We need money, both from our state delegation and from our local delegation, money that’s going to assist us with meeting the need for the roof at Sampson Middle School.”

While Tuesday’s meeting will be funding, Johnson said school officials weren’t pinning all their hopes on state funding.

A big topic of discussion has been how to properly utilize the nearly $7 million local fund balance to help remedy the situation, a piece, Johnson said, he and the board have discussed rigorously no matter the meetings outcome.

“Absolutely yes, we’ve discussed using fund balance; we’ve mentioned that to our county commissioners,” he said, “We’ve also talked about the fund balance money and what would be our best use of those funds. With those discussions, we’ve talked about possibly allocating at least half of it to the roof at Sampson Middle School, but we are also very optimistic about a new school and the Needs Based Public School Funds that we could get for a new preK-2 school.

”But, we know that those monies will not be enough to build a new school, so we were kind of sitting on that fund balance in anticipation of using some of it for our new school,” Johnson reasoned. “And so, that’s also kind of why we’re meeting with both our local and our state delegation to see what is the best use of our local fund balance.

“So, that question becomes, is it to go ahead and put half of a roof at Sampson Middle, or is it to kind of sit on that money in anticipation of the new school? Those are a couple of things that we’re trying to decide between.“