Clinton City Schools is in dire straits with its leaky, old and dilapidated roofs, and Board of Education members and the county Board of Commissioners need to find a way to resolve the growing need.
A Band-Aid cannot be expected to resolve the problems that can be found at four of the city’s five educational facilities. Only the new Clinton High School is without serious problems, and though seemingly new, that school is now over 10 years old.
So, putting off the inevitable with patches here, and patches on top of patches there, isn’t going to work. And continued efforts to do so is going to bring more buckets in hallways, more tiles out of ceilings and possibly even a brick facade from a upper portion of a building landing in the lower portion of the facility.
That picture was pretty much painted for city Board of Education members in late September when the system’s director of auxiliary services offered his assessment of the roofing problems.
John Lowe told the board that something needed to be done and, in his estimation sooner rather than later.
We couldn’t agree more.
Money, of course, is the issue. A total $11.3 million to be exact. And, for county commissioners, that doesn’t even factor in declining roof situations in their other public school system — Sampson County Schools.
City schools staff have already applied for a state Needs Based Capital Fund grant, much like the one the county system just received to help construct a new Hobbton High School.
While the city has received Needs Based grant funds before, to the tune of nearly $1 million, there is no guarantee it will come again. And the roofs just keep getting old and more deteriorated.
The city school system has a hefty pocket of change in their fund balance, basically a rainy day pot of money that grows as systems, or county governments, put some of its tax money (in this case supplemental tax money) away for unplanned emergencies.
In total, the city system’s fund balance sits at around $6.9 million, including child nutrition monies. There is room within that fund to fix some of the worst problems now and, should Needs Based monies come their way, be replenished later.
The city school board has an responsibility to use at least some of those funds to make necessary repairs.
County commissioners, too, have an obligation to fix roof problems that exist in either school system. But we’ve heard from commissioners over the course of the 2024-25 budget process bemoan the financial state the county is actually in these days, so finding that pot of gold to fix the roofs will be painful at best.
But it must be done.
While we understand the risk of draining a fund balance. All it takes is looking at the disasters facing western North Carolina right now to understand that a rainy day fund is needed for those least expected circumstances.
But nearly $7 million in that fund is too much and should be spent down on the needs within a school system.
The county doesn’t have a wealth of rainy day funds right now, but commissioners are going to have to look critically at what they do have, how their borrowing power is and what they can do to help alleviate this critical problem.
They have much on their financial plate to weigh, including their portion of funding for a new Hobbton High School, something else we believe they must do. Commissioners have financial obligations far beyond the Sheriff’s Department and the time is fast approaching when other needs are going to have to be met. Financial needs are coming home to roost and money will need to be found.
The city system should use some of its fund balance to help meet the need in their own back yard, but it isn’t their responsibility alone.
A resolution needs to be found, and soon. It’s simply not going away.