School bond faces uncertain future in state legislature

Chatham reps speak on competing Senate, House plans

Posted

A push to put a public school construction bond on the 2018 voting ballot failed. Now, backed by House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland), the push has begun again.

But according to Chatham County’s representatives in the N.C. General Assembly, that push faces a significant roadblock.

State Sen. Valerie Foushee and Rep. Robert Reives II (both D-Chatham) told the News + Record that competing plans from Senate and House leadership may not even reach Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk.

“I believe a school bond plan will pass (the House),” Reives said during a breakfast event Friday where Chatham County, Siler City, Pittsboro and other local officials discussed legislative priorities. “Frankly, I don’t know that we’re going to get to a point that we worry about distribution.”

The school construction bond was listed as the county’s top legislative priority for the 2019-2020 legislative session, which kicked off earlier this year. Foushee and Reives were re-elected to their respective seats, Foushee representing Senate District 23 and Reives representing House District 54.

Chatham County Interim Manager Dan LaMontagne expressed some optimism at the start of the discussion, citing activity already taking place at the legislature.

In December 2018, Moore announced that he would be going on a tour of the state in 2019 to gather support for a $1.9 billion school construction bond, $1.3 billion of which would go to aid local public school districts in capital costs. In that press release, Moore said a bond would help the education system keep up with “our state’s explosive growth over the past decade.”

“Education is what matters most to families and businesses — to the private and public sectors alike — and North Carolina is poised to build on historic commitments to our schools with another long-term investment in capital construction for our rapidly growing student population,” Moore said. “(That growth) brings opportunities and challenges for our school systems. The state General Assembly must continue to meet those needs with investments in our future.”

The phrase “rapidly growing student population” will ring familiar in the ears of Chatham County Schools administrators. With increasing development already in the area and Chatham Park just around the corner, the district’s student population is expected to grow by more than 14 percent over the next 10 years, according to projections by the Operations Research and Education Laboratory at N.C. State University. Chatham Park on its own is expected to add 700 students over 10 years and 6,000 students by the time the development is built out.

The district is already in the process of constructing a new high school and elementary school, which will cost a estimated combined total of $107,940,769.

The House’s plan, which has been publicly supported by Cooper, has not received endorsement from Senate leadership.

In its stead, several Republican Senators filed Senate Bill 5 late last week. The bill would instead create the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund, money from which one-third would be distributed annually to local school districts for “new facilities to meet the needs of a growing population.” The Fund would be filled with one-fourth of any fund balance left over at the end of a fiscal year and 4.5 percent of “net State tax revenues” from that year.

Monies from the fund cannot be used to pay off existing debt, and the funds “shall first be used to meet the debt service obligations of the State.”

Foushee said Senate leadership claims the plan will bring in $2 billion for school construction, but that would only happen if there was a surplus in state funds.

“It’s always going to be contingent on what the state takes in,” she said. “In those years that the state does not take in surplus, or the surplus is low or inadequate, that means that 4 percent will not be sufficient for what school systems need to be done.”

Both Foushee and Reives said the competing plans would likely be part of the upcoming budget negotiations between the House and Senate. Reives said Chatham’s legislators are firmly in favor of the bond proposal, but see tough sledding ahead for it.

“I’d be really, really surprised if that bill gets heard in the Senate,” he said.