Another Expensive Policy Issue in The Beaufort County Commissioners Election -- Building More Schools | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Some Beaufort County schools are over crowded. And some schools are as much as half empty. We have a school system with a slowly declining enrollment. In round numbers, we have more than 9,000 seats and 7,000 students.. I would estimate two thirds of our buildings are less than 25 years old.

    I am alarmed at the opinions of the candidates who participated in the Republican Club forum held at a restaurant in Chocowinity on Thursday September 29. My concern was because three Republican commissioner candidates and one school board candidate readily agreed to settle our overcrowding by spending the money to build more buildings. Let's see now, we have two thousand empty seats. At 1,000 students per school that is two whole schools. Today to build those two schools would cost about 20 million dollars.

    I did not participate in the candidate forum at Chocowinity because the Republican Club did not allow video taping or recording of the event. You know how I am about giving the public all the information.

    As I understand, three schools are full. Chocowinity, Washington High, and Bath.

    During the joint meeting between the School Board and County Commissioners held during the Spring of 2016, the school board proposed replacing two modular buildings at Washington High School. Both buildings total about 3,600 square feet. I estimate replacement would cost about $400,000.

    However, the School Board agreed to do a facilities capacity and districting study before asking for money for new buildings. I thought the issue would not come up until we got the study. Was I wrong?

    Commissioners, commissioner candidates and some school board members have lobbied each other to the point that the three Republican candidates for commissioner and at least one school board member have decided to just spend the money.

    The issue is much bigger than the $400,000 for Washington High. If we solve part of our crowding problems by replacing the modular buildings at Washington High School, we would have to build more buildings at Chocowinity and possibly Bath. A cheap fix for all of this would be 3 million dollars but a first class fix could run to as much a 10 million dollars. All of this is increased spending.

    Beaufort County has a record of bad judgement about the cost of schools. They use the money method, I predict we will spend a lot of money and still have a school system with a huge over capacity. Taxes would go up again to pay for more bonds for the schools.

    I am concerned about the candidates and incumbents making back room decisions about large money matters without having any information at all. It is the commissioner's duty and job to protect the public from wasteful spending.

    The basis for the money method of solving this seating capacity problem is that both incumbent commissioners and school board members think they would not be re re-elected if they did anything other than spend the money to build the schools. These four candidates are willing to use the tax payers money to buy themselves a political office. I guess that is the way politicians do it these days. Be careful who you vote for. Most of these candidates are looking after themselves and not the taxpayer. We have seen a lot of that lately in Beaufort County.