Interview: One hour with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board Chair George Griffin

I spoke with School Board Chair George Griffin on August 28, 2024 for an hour about a wide range of issues, including recent personnel cuts the district has made, the forthcoming school bond, and district enrollment trends. Questions were supplied by me, Whitney Robinson, Martin Johnson and Geoff Green. All four of us are parents in the district.

The transcript below is lightly edited for clarity. I’ve added some links in parentheses to original source material where it adds clarity to what George said. (You may also want to subscribe to his Substack newsletter, which goes over school board meetings and what has transpired.) 

Mel Kramer: Thanks George for agreeing to do this.

I’m just going to jump right into some really hard stuff.  If you’ve said that these cuts have been coming for two years, why wasn’t it addressed during last year’s budget process? How did you not know about this and address it sooner? It doesn’t make sense that it all falls apart now – contracts have been given out to people which have now been rescinded. 

George Griffin: So we’ve been tracking this in our Finance Committee regularly for the three years we’ve been on the board, and when I say we – I mean primarily Riza Jenkins and myself. Riza is our Vice Chair and chairs our Finance Committee.  We have been the ringleaders on the board in making sure we understood our budget. 

And all those links that Andy Jenks posted in the various letters (Ed note: July 2024, August 2024)  are there to reference for people that during these [previous school board] meeting[s], we discussed this very issue, and here’s what we said would happen, and here was what we anticipated someday needing to do. 

So we got to the point last year where it was clear that the day of reckoning was coming soon, and last spring the superintendent developed a Corrective Action Plan (in February 2024), brought it to the board and said: “We’re instituting this immediately.” It ended up capturing about $2.4 million. It was a solid start but insufficient to completely balance the budget.

Our finance office estimated needing around $5 million total for the budget year we were  in. The way it works is that at the end of the year, the 12 month fiscal year, the budget is reconciled with all the outstanding bills. By law it has to balance – one cannot run a deficit year-to-year.

So  you never quite know where you are  until you get to the end of the year, and then something like the proverbial light bill comes in a little higher than you anticipated, or whatever. So yes, we knew more budget action was going to be needed, but we didn’t really know exactly what that meant until the final numbers were in (in exact dollars). However, we kept saying it’s (the reduction) going to be in personnel. Remember, personnel account for 85% of our budget.

So, the two primary things that kicked us into high gear were the fact that we’ve traditionally used unfilled vacancies as a source for balancing the budget. And at the end of the [budget] year, you can often capture several million dollars because you had vacant positions which were budgeted for but not used. Our finance people are able to take that money, coupled with some of the fund balance (the second thing), and reconcile the budget. We typically don’t have to take any other action. Our vacancy fill rate, however, [this past year] was unusually high –  in the high 90 per cent range – and so we didn’t have those vacant position funds like we typically do. It’s a nice problem to have though, because it means our positions are filled. 

So we didn’t have the money that we typically have from unused positions, and  costs were higher with inflation.  At that point, the superintendent proposed a staff reduction in Lincoln Center and non-classroom positions (Tier 2 in the reduction plan), because we legally had to balance our budget. And that’s where the suddenness of it appeared. 

People can criticize the suddenness if they want, but it wasn’t due to not being on top of the problem. Now, the timing (beginning of the year)… my heart goes out to everybody. The timing is never good when you lay people off. But had the superintendent proposed doing this four months ago, people would have been upset then also, and we weren’t sure we had to lay anybody off [four months ago]. Let me correct myself. Nobody got laid off – all were offered other jobs commensurate with their experience and qualifications. When possible, salary levels were maintained, but some did experience a reduction. Not going to try to sugarcoat it. It’s tough. The staff affected were all doing important work, and are valued. And this also meant their work had to be assigned to others who were already working 100%.

So regarding timing,we didn’t want to sit on it until later. Vacant positions in schools needed to be filled ASAP. We believed the time for action was now.  We didn’t like it, but we needed to deal with it and waiting wasn’t going to make it better. That’s the rationale. 

Kramer: One of the things that I’ve heard is that, because it was so close to school starting, people who might be reduced had no time to look for another position.

Griffin: That’s correct. Not intentional. But you’re correct. There’s no question about it. If I was in their shoes, I’d be extremely upset. Now they were offered a position as close to what they were getting – salary-wise and with their qualifications – as humanly possible. And so nobody literally got told, “effective next week you don’t have a job.” 

But you know, I get it. If you were an administrator and you had been promoted into that job from the classroom, and now you’re being told, in a week you’re going back in the classroom, well that’s sudden, that’s a shock, and there’s no way to defend that. I’m not going to try. 

Kramer:  So you chose a reduction in force rather than reducing administrative pay. I thought all the administrators got raises last year. I’m curious if there was any thought into rolling some of those back to save some services. 

Griffin: Nobody got a raise last year anywhere except for the raise that was granted by the State of North Carolina to all educators, and that includes the superintendent. And so, let me tell you how this works for us: The superintendent makes a certain amount. And when the State of North Carolina gives all employees a 3% raise, or 5% or whatever, the state-funded portion of her salary is automatically increased by that amount. We then increase the local portion of her salary by the same percent as well. It’s not a bonus in any sense of the word. Same process really for all jobs.

Not pulling any punches here, but it’s not any more than what the state provides for everyone. So no, no thought was given to rolling back anyone’s salary. 

The same thing happens with teachers. It doesn’t matter if they’re paid out of state dollars or out of local dollars. If the state grants a raise to teachers, we use the local money to pay the locally funded positions (and everybody’s supplement too). So when the state raises teacher pay (meager as it has been) that teacher’s local supplement increases as well.The state doesn’t provide for all our teachers. We pay for a lot of them with local dollars. It’s a lot of local money every time there is a raise.

And so anybody who got a raise only got the state approved raise – nobody got a bonus.

Kramer: Do you know how many people left rather than taking reassignment? 

Griffin: I don’t think anybody has left. We’re talking 11 people right now [in Phase II]. My understanding is, as of today, nobody’s left. I could be wrong.  (Mel: One person has left.)

Kramer: Are there any special considerations that could be taken to ensure that superstars like Matt Cone and NC Teacher of the Year Kim Jones won’t leave after they got reassigned to jobs they’ve never had?

Griffin: If the superintendent could negotiate something to keep good people, she’ll do that. I don’t like talking about individual staff members, but…teachers like Matt Cone or Kim Jones – these are incredible people doing incredibly helpful, positive things for our students and district. And I think we would do anything to try and keep them (and others). Every success we have in our district is a direct result of our staff. Period. 

Kramer: So I know that School Board member Vickie Feaster Fornville brought this up at the meeting, but who’s going to do the work like Title IX compliance and McKenney-Vento (homelessness) cases now? The position that handled those items was cut.

Griffin: So the superintendent announced the job reassignments for particular current Lincoln Center administrators still employed. It’s more work spread among the existing staff.

Kramer: But don’t they already have, like, a full workload?

Griffin: Yup. This is a problem. The message needs to be loud and clear to the public, and to critics who claim Lincoln Center is bloated, that the work still needs to be done. So administrators have had to add work. Ultimately, if it doesn’t get handled in Lincoln Center, it gets pushed into the building level, and then principals and building staff have to do it. 

Kramer: I feel like for roles like Title IX compliance and ensuring that McKenney-Vento cases are handled – for those tasks,  continuity is so important.

Griffin: It very much is. Let’s say, if we have 30 administrators in Lincoln Center, and now you have 20, there you go. Just do the math. 20 people are doing the work of 30. Eventually it affects direct services. It simply has to.

And, you know, people like to argue, are 30 people you had doing good work? Is it important work? Are they working hard? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. We think it’s important work. Yes, they’re working hard, and yes, they’re getting the job done. At the same time, the superintendent protected our classrooms as best she could, and made these reductions in her administrative staff. I hope people take note of that.

Kramer: I’m going to switch topics for a second. Given the population projections and the way funding is tied to student numbers, do we have the political will to close schools and permanently reduce classroom staff? Is that on the table, can you say on record that you need to close an elementary school? 

Griffin: Yes.

Kramer: Say more.

Griffin: We definitely need to close at least one elementary school. We’ve been open about this. And clearly, there is strong community reaction when changes affect individual schools. This is not unique to CHCCS, but is true universally. I have worked directly with school districts in 26 states and 10 foreign countries, and it’s true everywhere. You propose a school closure and immediately everyone wants you fired or recalled. And it can get ugly. Love how Riza often puts it, “We have to have some courageous conversations with the community.”

We have 11 elementary schools. Half of them are very old, and we have 1100 vacant seats (scattered around) at the elementary level in those 11 schools, and we have demographic projections that say we expect a slight increase In elementary school enrollment over the next 10 years – maybe in the neighborhood of up to 300 additional students. So our data suggests that to continue just carrying all 11 buildings doesn’t make any financial sense. 

It is on the table, and it will be on the discussion table this year as we move forward with our budget planning for the future. It didn’t get dropped. 

Kramer: So one concern I have is that whenever changes have been brought up, parents from specific schools organize and protest and say I can’t support this change if it changes my school, and it seems like balancing the budget comes into conflict with that. How do you reconcile all of that with the need to potentially close an elementary school and redistrict? That happened with the school bond discussions.

Griffin: So I’m going to just be blunt with you. Here’s the deal: our staff worked for two years to get a bond proposal plan together (with the consultants). Last spring, in May, they brought their first iteration of a plan to us. That was the one that involved the McDougle schools. 

So the public got day one of the sausage making of developing a bond proposal when that proposal first became public. As soon as the agenda was posted – before we had even discussed it as a board – a portion of the community went ballistic, and we did not respond to the vitriol from some quarters other than to maybe shake our heads a little. We did meet with interested parties and school groups. They had a right to be concerned, but we (board) really hadn’t  even talked yet. It was a discouraging start to the process. As a board we continue to operate with transparency and in full public view. In this case, that meant having open and honest discussions about the plans put before us. I had hoped that folks would see this proposal discussion process as just that, a process.  

That’s the nature of the world we live in. Truth be told, there was nobody on the school board who caved into any of the talk about, “if you do this then I won’t vote for the bond” threats. What we did was talk about the wisdom of moving a whole segment of kids to another school so that we could move another group into their schools. And the concern we had was that [initial plan] didn’t make much sense in that regard. We’re trying to build new schools and all of a sudden we’re moving kids around. Ultimately, it just didn’t seem like a good plan.

So then the staff went back to the drawing board, and I wrote in my Substack that I knew alternatives were coming but I didn’t know what they were going to be. And then they brought us back one that involved moving Morris Grove and overlaid on this was a section to close Estes Hills and get them a replacement  school in 5-10 years. . 

Now everybody at these schools are upset, but we’re [school board] not having discussions about how to make everybody calm down. We understand they’re upset. We’re having discussions about what the bond proposal needs to look like. And so we said once again to staff: Go back to the drawing board. Bring us other options. 

And they brought us another series of plans, and we started suggesting what the plan might look like. And by three board meetings later, the administration brought a plan that looked radically different from where we started. Honestly, it was an evolutionary process, with a lot of give and take. As I’ve said before, the public got a view of how the proverbial sausage is made. All parties acted in good faith. Everything was done transparently and in full view of the community. People might disagree with me, but I think the process ended with us having a solid bond proposal plan. It was a bumpy ride getting there, but we made it and so it was worth a few bumps.

And if you look back at the, if you actually look back at the conversations…

Kramer: Oh, I’ve watched the meetings –

Griffin: So our actions weren’t about appeasing the voices. They were about getting this right for the kids and building schools for the 50-year future. We don’t know what the programs are going to look like in 20 years, but we want to leave this community with good facilities with adaptability for future educational needs. And the upshot of it was we ended up with a solid plan, and people got to see the ups and downs of how we got there, and I own that. 

Kramer: I think part of my concern is people are conflating the current budget issues with the school bond, which is a different pot of money. 

Griffin: Absolutely. It’s a major concern.

Kramer:  And the school bond doesn’t involve redistricting, which seems like it might need to happen given the declines in enrollment. And so people are bringing that up too. And can you help us parse this out a little more? 

Griffin: I think our discussion confused the public to some degree, and I wish we hadn’t done it that way. I wish the bond plan had been brought forward without dual language consolidation involved to begin with. But that’s hindsight, and you know what they say about hindsight. 

The bond does not directly include redistricting because that’s putting the cart way before the horse. Once we get into actually building new schools, at some point we will have to conduct significant redistricting. It is not inconceivable that future redistricting might occur several times over a period of years, however our goal would be the least disruption possible. But honestly, that’s way off in the future now as far as the bond plan.

And as for budgets and money, the school bond proposal for $300 million can only be used for building new schools. Period. Not one dollar of that amount can be used to address any operating budget shortfalls such as the one we are dealing with now. That’s an entirely different funding stream, and so hopefully the voters will clearly understand that supporting the bond proposal is strictly to build new schools.

Kramer: Can a smaller CHCCS continue to sustain multiple district-wide programs (dual-language, LEAP) and associated costs (e.g., transportation)?

Griffin:  I had a long conversation with Riza Jenkins last night about this very thing. We cannot keep doing everything at the same levels. We have this Academic Return on Investment (A-ROI) process that the superintendent has instituted. Leadership staff have been trained in its use. We had a board training last spring on exactly how that works. It’s a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of various programs and the money we spend on them. 

It’s a thoughtful data-based approach, rather than just having a meeting and deciding if we think a program is working or not. And this year, we’re going to begin evaluating programs such as the ones you just named, among many others, to determine where we need to spend our budget dollars most effectively. Ultimately every program needs to be reviewed through this lens. We’re talking over a period of years.

Kramer: Is Mandarin on the table? 

Griffin: Dual language is on the table as are many programs. Mandarin’s a part of dual language. Please don’t read anything into this other than the AROI process will inform future budgeting practices. Getting a review doesn’t mean a program is under the gun. But it does mean we will have some metrics to gauge its effectiveness in relation to the dollars spent for it.

Kramer: Is LEAP on the table?

Griffin: LEAP is on the table, with the same caveats I just mentioned. 

Kramer: What else is on the table? 

Griffin: Well, there is no table. These are some of our big dollar programs, so we need to look at them. What I’m really saying to you, Mel, is, everything’s on the table, and the big dollar programs are probably the ones that get the most attention. And there’s also a bandwidth issue for the staff. You can’t just do this to every program all at once. 

All in all we have over 50+programs that have a budget item. That’s what makes CHCCS special.  But we’ve reached a point now where we cannot sustain them all. 

We’ll keep discussing specifics in the Student Success Committee and in board meetings when there is data to review. And yeah, it’s going to take a lot of political will just to have some of  these conversations. 

Kramer: How much revenue does the CHCCS public school system lose when a parent decides to send their kid to a charter school?

Griffin: Ball park figure – around $15K/pupil.

Kramer: I want to kind of switch gears a little bit. It’s alarming to hear that the supplements and surpluses are increasingly being taken into account by the Orange County Board of Commissioners when it decides on the annual allocation. That would mean that the district could never count on using local tax supplements to address the issues of concern. If the county is reducing our continuation allocation, it becomes like a zero sum. So what we’re putting in, they’re taking out. Is that the case, and if not, what’s going on there? 

Griffin: Yeah. So look – the county has two budget deals here. One is the operational budget for the two school districts. The other is capital needs (buildings, maintenance, some technology.) It is the operational budget where we annually request an increase to meet our continuation needs.

Then there’s the CHCCS special district tax. The commissioners (by law) set the rate (currently 19.80 per $100 evaluation) but do not control the use of the funds. These funds are truly supplemental by design and purpose. They are not intended to supplant regular county operational funding. They (Commissioners) have to equally fund (per pupil and by law), both school districts. You’ll have to figure out a way to ask the commissioners about all this.

Kramer: Well, that kind of brings up another question. I read a great paper by Erika Wilson, who’s a law professor at UNC, about school systems in the South that have chosen not to become part of the county school systems, and it’s steeped in racism.

Griffin: Historically, yep.

Kramer: So I’m curious – given the financial constraints –  is merging the school systems worth discussing? 

Griffin: For financial reasons, no.  It’s historically and typically the third rail of local county school issues. If the discussion centered on the overall benefits to all students, then “sure.” Is there a programmatic benefit for the kids? The answer is, yeah, maybe, for certain kids. 

There is very little financial benefit to merging school systems. Now I know it’s an attractive proposition because the state only budgets say one superintendent per district. So right now  they provide two and then we have tax dollars being spent to supplement. So yeah, there’s some minimal costs that might be saved. So to say there’s no benefit is not true, but honestly, is it worth discussing right now as a solution to any looming issues? Not really.

And, by current state law, the lowest funded district would need to be funded at the rate of the higher district. Because of our special district tax (OCS does not have one) that would mean an out-of-the-gate expense of $20-25M to get started, and then a super major tax increase for OCS residents. Not gonna happen.

You wouldn’t believe the territorial arguments that have historically  come up [about this]. You can look this up. I’ve looked it up. I’ve been in some of the community meetings. There have been incredible public fights about mergers in the past 30 years. And it comes up every 15 or 20 years. 

Kramer: I might push back against that and say, you know, I’ve been reviewing school board meetings and town council meetings from the 1950s and the early 1960s – they’re all on file – and the pushback against desegregating in the schools in the early 1960s…if you were to have just listened to the parental feedback, you know, it was, it was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the segregated schools. It took a federal act, lawsuits – and then a lot of organizing locally.

Griffin:  That’s correct. Yes, in the 60s, I totally agree. I’m talking about 20-30 years ago now. 

Kramer: Oh, I know, but that’s always the context this district exists in.

And the Black population of Chapel Hill has dropped significantly, and I’m assuming that the Black population of the school district has also dropped. Is that true? And I’m curious about how the Board thinks about racial equity? And other populations of interest, like English language learners? Does equity strategy change when long term communities are disappearing from the system, and what challenges does that present? 

Griffin: Equity is a front and center value and focus of our district. 

I was thinking about writing a Viewpoints article the other day, so I started doing my homework, trying to figure out what I was really going to say. According to the historical timeline information on our district website things have really changed. I looked at the demographic trends for the last 30 years in the district and our building history, because we built in spurts, and we had a building increase in the early 70s, late 60s — the Baby Boomer population.

People found Chapel Hill and moved here. At that time (early 1990’s), we had about  6,000 students, and we built seven new schools. And then nothing got built for 20 years. And then all of a sudden, we had another boom, and we built six more new schools, the last one being. Northside in 2013.

Back 30 years ago, the district was 73% white students, 19% Black students, and about 8% “Other”. During that 30 years, enrollment went up to 12,000+ and the demographic  numbers started to shift. According to our own 2024 data, we are 48.4% White, 18% LatinX, 13% Asian, 12.1% Black  and 7.5% Multiracial. Fully 30.7% of our students are considered Economically Disadvantaged and 12. 3% are Multilingual Learners.    

You can get into the rapid decline in student population data  over recent years – it’s interesting to look at data trends. The decline appears parallel with the white enrollment decline, and is coupled with an increase  in the LatinX and Asian populations. Clearly the percentage of Black students has declined over this period. 

Kramer: Well, I think there are larger issues – this overlaps with housing, it has to do with a lot of different past decisions made. So I’m curious if the school board, if there’s appetite for the school board and town councils to work together more. What conversations are taking place across these bodies? I watch all of these meetings – because I run a blog with a group of people where this is our strange hobby, so we know what’s going on. But that’s weird — No one I know is able to follow all of these committee meetings and advisory board meetings and meetings where information is shared. 

You know, when they built the side path in front of Estes Hills Elementary School, we were super excited, because that’s part of increasing walking/biking transportation for schools, and then Estes Hills was initially on the chopping block, and we were confused, because it seems like the right hand wasn’t talking to the left hand. 

Griffin:  Just in the past six months, Mayor Jess Anderson has picked up the ball on this with us. We’ve actually begun to  formalize a CHCCS Board-Chapel Hill Town Council meeting process and had an initial meeting with Mayor Anderson, Mayor Pro Tem Amy Ryan, CHCCS Vice Chair Riza Jenkins, and myself. We also included some staff on each side. And our staff frequently communicates and works together with town staff on issues. More so than the electeds, at least to date.

As I said we’ve met informally — and housing is one of the things generating the need to meet, and so is the whole concept of walkability to schools, which is something that actually grew up around us. We didn’t  plan it as much as housing patterns dictated it, so to speak. But now it’s like everybody’s embracing it as a future consideration, which we certainly do.

With that said, Al Ciarochi [the deputy superintendent for operations] and his staff have had regular meetings with [Chapel Hill Town Manager] Chris Blue and the town for years.

Kramer: What about Carrboro? 

Griffin: We are approaching Carrboro with the same idea. Mayor Foushee and I have had some preliminary conversations and I anticipate developing a more direct communication process with them. Carrboro and Chapel Hill are a little different.

Kramer: How so? 

Griffin: Size, housing patterns and school locations. We’re trying to do the same things with Carrboro in terms of meeting together in some fashion. We’re not quite as far along as with Chapel Hill. But the answer is yes. I mean, Carrboro Elementary is right in the heart of Carrboro. They have a walking path there, and we’re trying to figure out, because we’re going to build a new replacement school there, how can we incorporate community aspects of it? And traffic congestion around that site during drop off and pick up times is something to behold just because of its location.

As part of our bond plan, our staff has reviewed and referenced the Carrboro Connects  Comprehensive Plan. It’s pretty long!

Kramer: Yeah, I mean they have an executive summary but it’s still pretty long! 

Kramer: I want to talk a little bit about surrounding districts. I know that Durham just had a huge budget issue, but not everybody here is probably following that. The Wake County and Alamance and Chatham County schools, some of them appear to be growing because they have a lot of new housing, but I’m not I’m not sure what issues they have that we don’t or if there are comparable issues that we can kind of learn from what’s taking place around us. Are they experiencing, like, the same financial constraints that we are in the same way? 

Griffin: Yes, at one level, the answer is yes, everybody’s experiencing the same financial constraints because we’re all state funded, right? And so there’s a whole issue with state funding. The NC General Assembly has been deliberately attacking and dismantling the public education system for the past 12 years. It’s well documented. They are literally defunding the public schools. You can print that. 

Wake County is the largest in the district, and I think the eighth largest in the country, or something. They’re losing enrollment – they have declining enrollment for the first time in their history. Alamance County  has increased enrollment growth right along the county line with us. They’ve laid off some staff and they are under  financial stress. They’re also three times bigger than us. Chatham County is experiencing some continuing growth, and I understand have some difficulty at times in filling all their vacancies. So we all have our issues and struggles, even if we are different in varying ways.

Kramer: Yeah, but knowing that more cuts might be coming, you know, is that harmful to recruitment and retention? Because people are saying, well, this is not, maybe as stable as something in another county would be. 

Griffin: Yeah, I’m sure it is in some corners. Keep in mind, Mel, we’re 1900 employees, right? We’re the third largest employer in the county. We are talking about a situation where you just can’t keep everything going if your costs are going up and your income is not matching it. 

I want people to keep in mind, 85% of our budget is in salaries, and I’m going to keep saying it, because that means when we have to trim our budget it involves people and positions, as well as  programs too. 

Kramer: One more question from me –

Griffin: By the way, you’re doing a great job.

Kramer: Thanks – so we know that enrollment trends in elementary school are going down, but we don’t necessarily currently see those same drops at junior high and high school. And I’m curious if we’re going to see a wave of that, you know, where we have to right-size other levels, because we don’t have the classes coming in. At Carrboro Elementary School, there’s a combined first and second grade class now, because there aren’t enough students to have two first grade classes. 

Yeah. So are we going to see this wave as younger kids  go through the school system where the high schools are under enrolled and the junior highs are under enrolled, or is there some enrollment that comes back at those stages, like what? What are we seeing in terms of projections? 

Griffin: What we’re projecting is that things are going to stay fairly stable at the secondary level, but while  there could be a slight decline in enrollment, at the same time we have kids who return to public schools after being out during the elementary years.  

Kramer: Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you wish I had?

Griffin:. I am concerned that because of the timing of the budget reduction that the bond referendum could get confused in peoples’ minds. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is actually in fine overall financial shape. I know that doesn’t sound right, but we are. We’re not going under or anything.  

However, we have terminated 24 positions and eleven valued employees were directly affected. 

Nobody’s happy with that. This was a courageous decision by the superintendent, and we have a plan over the Tier III process to discontinue some 58 more positions at the end of the school year, to cut some more positions in June 2025, and by doing these three things – Tier I, II, III — we’re not only going to be able to balance our budget, but we’re also going to start to rebuild our fund balance. So I want people to understand that this is a process, but it’s not all doom and gloom. I mean, we’re still going to have about 1850 employees, and we’re going to still have a lot of programming that other districts don’t. And I anticipate some additional savings when we deal with the elementary empty seats issue as previously discussed.

Kramer: I spoke to Chair Bedford yesterday from the county commissioners. And I’m wondering if you can talk a little about the fund balance, because it’s tricky. What I didn’t understand was, if the County Commissioners didn’t want you to fill up your fund balance if it was being used for personnel, or if the fund balance should only be used for one time costs. And that seems hard, because personnel is 85% of your budget, right? 

Griffin: They would prefer that we never use fund balance for recurring costs. Because, yeah, that means then we need more money down the road, right? We also have a written policy, a joint policy with the county commissioners and the school boards, that spells out that we may keep a minimum 5.5% fund balance, and yet, verbally, they tell us we shouldn’t have a fund balance. 

We’ve had head-to-head conversations with them about that, and it never gets completely resolved. 

Kramer: That seems like the elephant in the room, and that’s what I’ve been trying to parse out over the past week. 

Griffin: Well, the elephant in the room on our end is that the policy was set, before I got on the board, that we could carry a minimum 5.5%. I think they meant to say maximum when they developed that policy, but they said minimum. It’s a policy generated by the Orange County Commissioners and  for them.  We’ve laid it on the table before, and nobody really wanted to change it.

Kramer: Well, I want to thank you for being so candid and open with your answers. I appreciate you taking the time.

Griffin: You’re welcome.