Avery County officials hear school-budget presentation calling for transparency and local pay increases

Lan Holtsclaw asked Avery County commissioners on April 1 to require clearer school financial reporting and to consider local increases that would boost teacher and librarian resources.

Ms. Holtsclaw told the Avery County Board of Commissioners that the county should request a certified FY24 trial balance (including zero-balance accounts and beginning fiscal-year balances), a certified FY24 salary report with full fund-account detail, project-level capital balances, and unassigned fund balances for FY20–FY23. "There should be a proposed quarterly meeting schedule for FY25 which would help maintain transparency and increase collaboration throughout the year," she said.

Why it matters: County commissioners set aspects of local funding and oversight that can affect classroom resources and staff retention. Ms. Holtsclaw framed the requests as a way to give taxpayers and elected officials a clearer picture before the FY25 budget is finalized.

Ms. Holtsclaw urged specific dollar changes aimed at day-one classroom access and retention: the current $100 per-teacher classroom-supply allocation should be increased to "$300 plus per teacher" and librarians should receive "$600 plus per librarian/school," she said. She also recommended raising the district’s local supplement from 3% to 6% to "provide additional income to staff to encourage sustainment of current staffing levels and attract people to the area." She asked that capital funds be tied to specific projects and that any repurposing of remaining funds require board approval with account-level detail provided.

At the start of the meeting, John Greene, chairman of the Avery County Board of Education, urged commissioners and the public to ‘‘defend the Avery County School system and its employees most of all for the sake of our students and parents.’’ Greene said his final term on the board ends in June and said the incoming board should be able to "freely conduct the school systems business independently as the voters expect." He also said public-records requests made the process expensive: "the cost of the taxpayers of Avery County has been in the thousands of dollars," he said.

The presentation also included competing counts about public-records requests: Ms. Holtsclaw said there had been "16 public records requests, 85 documents/files, and 175MB of data" as of March 2024, and asked that commissioners rely on certified, account-level information when evaluating budget requests.

No formal budget decisions were made at the meeting. The school board’s FY25 budget and any requested changes to supplements or supply allocations will be considered as the county budget process proceeds; Ms. Holtsclaw recommended a quarterly meeting schedule to maintain ongoing transparency.

The presentation and Mr. Greene’s comments were placed on the public record during the April 1 meeting; commissioners did not vote on the school-board items that evening.