School board wants taxing authority
By Frank Bradley Sentinel writer

By a unanimous vote, the Clay County school board approved a resolution supporting legislation to allow local boards of education authority to levy taxes.

The proposed House Bill 1740, known as School Board Fiscal Accountability Act, would if passed permit county commissioners the option of passing taxing authority to school boards to raise the local funds needed for the educational needs of the children they serve.

The resolutions states that over 90 % of the boards of education in the United States are fiscally independent and that North Carolina is unique in funding public education by placing the control of educational policy with local boards of education while requiring the governing bodies of local governments to appropriate funds for educational purposes.

The resolutions further states that this arrangements often puts elected members of the board of education at odds with budgetary and taxing decisions of another elected body, elected by the same constituency.

The resolutions argues that decisions for a school system should be made by those most knowledgeable about it, whereas county commissioners have no special expertise in educational matters and that local boards do.

Superintendent Scott Penland said the resolution would be joined with other school boards among the state school board association and provided to the legislature. Penland and the board members said they believed that the commissioners would also be in favor of this sort of arrangement. Penland said that if it passed in the legislature, it would most likely take a couple of years to get implemented. And that the decision as to whether to grant the BOE authority locally would be made by the county government.

In another resolution the Clay County BOE supported a resolution requesting the North Carolina General Assembly to repeal a statute which allows out-of-state scholarship students to be classified as in-state for tuition purposes.

Discussion among the board members indicated that while if might not amount to a large amount of money, the savings could amount to as much as $20,000 for a county like Clay, and that the primary purpose of North Carolina's universities is to serve students of North Carolina.

The board supported two other resolutions: one supporting sales tax exemptions or refunds for public schools involving school purchases.

The board noted that the General Assembly awards such refunds to a wide range of new entities, such as motor sports racing teams, data centers and baked goods thrift stores.

The other resolution the board passed involved allowing school boards flexibility in establishing their school year calendar. The current calendar does not allow the fall semester to be completed before the winter break, thus forcing exams to be taken after the break, imposing a hardship on the students and school. The current calendar has also led to a decrease in amount of instructional time students have in taking Advancement Placement tests., caused a scheduling problem with our community colleges and universities, which are out of alignment with our public schools. Penland said he felt the decision to start school later in the year was a political one by legislators from the Eastern part of NC and was not in the best interest of the schools in this region.

The board also approved a Sex Offenders policy, which had been read and discussed previously.

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