EMAIL FROM KARI H.: That is not what was meant by financing for the public school system or for the children
Wil Glenn
kari h. karih...@gmail.com
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Dear Board of County Commissioners,
I write related to the OCS & CHCCS joint meeting being held with your board tonight.
As a longtime proponent for (much) more tangible safeguarding and accounting to the public of the county taxpayers’ monies allocated to Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, I respectfully ask your board to add concrete transparency-intended tactics and practices to the inter-local agreement — which is on tonight’s agenda, albeit with no public comment provided — in exchange for the roughly $1 billion to be provided to the two traditional public schools over the next decade.
Some preliminary ideas that I ask to be part of a work session topic aimed at significantly improving the existing draft of the inter-local agreement before your board, (importantly, the board with control over the pursestrings), negotiates with the other signatories and then approves:
a. Post publicly a monthly one-pager: lowest cash point (days cash), amount drawn & average daily balance, and all-in cost to date—separating capital from operating cash for OCS and CHCCS. [2030 TOSA Taskforce].
b. Post both student enrollment and staff numbers quarterly for OCS and CHCCS—separating student-facing staff with benefits, student-facing staff without benefits, central office executives, and third-party outsourced staff (including consultants and other professional service providers).
c. Establish a public dashboard which affirmatively informs the public on a granular level of how county taxpayer funds are being used by OCS and CHCCS including but not limited to staffing, travel, “professional development”, capital outlays, and affiliations. [In light of school safety problems along with the continuing decrease in student enrollment yet the increase to central office executives’ salaries,* it is long overdue to regularly and accurately account for non-direct student endeavors as well as the corresponding financial costs of OCS’ and CHCCS’ many memberships, associations, fellowships, cohorts, academies, coalitions, catalysts, projects, board appointments, and whatever new tag used by the next group OCS and CHCCS executives join].
As for questions to hopefully be raised and answered during tonight’s joint meeting:
1. CHCCS is seemingly preparing for the second consecutive year to ask Orange County Government to provide a cash advance to meet its financial obligations. What is the cash advance amount and for what specific purposes? How does the public currently learn about any such cash advance requests and then track the taxpayer monies if provided?
2. Under the “newer-and-fewer schools” mantra that could be previously heard at Orange County Commissioner meetings related to the now approved bond referendum, what are the anticipated cost expenses of closing OCS & CHCCS schools, including the financial consequences of maintaining empty campuses? Further, what are the foreseeable ramifications (positives and negatives) if closed OCS & CHCCS schools are put up for sale and bought by charter entities who reopen them as charter schools over the next ten years?*
3. What tangible activities are OCS and CHCCS undertaking to retain, as well as recruit back, school-aged children?
4. What are the pension-spiking projections for OCS and CHCCS? Below is a well-needed warning out of Surry County from June 2025 to other wonderful communities and boards of county commissioners throughout North Carolina:
Elkin Schools billed for over $250,000 in “pension-spiking
… Commissioner Melissa Hiatt wondered how it got this far, “Five years as this number grew, there was a monthly report that told that this was a red flag.”
“So, it didn’t surprise anyone because they were getting the monthly warnings… but they did it anyway,” Tucker noted…
… “There should never be an increase of $35 to $40,000 in the same position over a five year period. That is not what was meant by financing for the public school system or for the children; they deserve better,” Hiatt said.”
While Hall was not “on the scene personally when this atrocious thing occurred, I think the county board ought to be more observant going forward, Tucker said.
5. What are Orange County taxpayers’ maximum financial exposure, if any, to contracted buyout clauses — contracts entered into by school boards — for the superintendency positions in each OCS and CHCCS? Is the amount of county funding permitted to be used for the salary and/or for the buyout of a superintendency position currently capped in Orange County policy?
Finally, here is the link to the North Carolina State Auditor’s Rapid Review Report for Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools:
[As each page of the report notes, the document is not an audit report]. It was two former WSFCS executives who conducted CHCCS’ “financial review” in 2020. [Once again, that “financial review” document was not an audit report]. I strongly suggest that the 2020 “financial review” report of CHCCS — as well as the HIL Consultants, LLC, report conducted of OCS — be dusted off and considered in advance of the next round of improvement to the inter-local agreement draft. The children of this community are deserving of excellent educations which requires (much) better public accounting of the Orange County education dollars allocated for their benefit.
Thank you for your service.
Regards, Kari Hamel
* Considering the continuing decrease in student enrollment in both OCS & CHCCS where the county allotment funding instead follows the Orange County residents/students to charter schools, at what threshold number of charter students, if at any threshold, will your county board be conducting joint meetings with these charters?
Please excuse all of the grammatical and typographical errors.