There’s hope yet that the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education and county commissioners can reach an agreement on school funding, and that’s good news.
It’s not clear why mediator Willis Whichard declined to declare an impasse in talks between the two boards — a step that would have cleared the way for the school board to sue the county. But the boards did seem very close to arriving at the same number the last time they met. Commissioners were agreeing to fund $28.5 million of the schools’ $40 million request for building projects and saying they would OK the rest once financing details were worked out.
Could the county now work out those details by the next meeting? Perhaps so. But control of the money is also at issue. As commissioners dominated discussion during the boards’ Jan. 21 meeting — to the point Chairman Jim Sides nearly squelched school board member Jean Kennedy as she raised a legitimate point of order — they made several references to having the power to approve or deny disbursement of the promised millions, depending on what they thought of its use. Isn’t that what this mediation is about — committing the money and approving its use for designated projects?
We’ll know more when the two boards sit down together some time in the next two weeks. No one wants to see this battle go to court.