GATESVILLE —  Tension over the future of New Beginnings Daycare and growing frustration over school district finances dominated Monday’s Gates County Commission meeting, culminating in a unanimous vote to request the North Carolina State Auditor to conduct an independent investigation of the Gates County Board of Education. For parents with kids at the daycare — it’s not good news.

Read our previous stories here and here about the daycare.  

Long-story-short, a proposal was on the table in November for the Gates Commission and Board of Education (BOE) to keep the daycare in operation. Commission approved $50,000 toward that endeavor – with the commission asking the BOE to put some skin in the game – $50,000 more.

Last week, the BOE opted not to contribute funds needed to keep the daycare open — sad to say, parents better call grandma, Nanny McPhee or Mary Poppins if you need childcare — New Beginnings Daycare’s last day will be Dec. 31. Based on what was said at the last meeting, the daycare cared for around 19-20 kids, sometimes more.

Monday, Commission Chairwoman Emily Truman read a lengthy letter sent from the Gates County Board of Education, detailing a breakdown in communication and a reversed funding commitment that ultimately led the district to reject additional county money for the New Beginnings Daycare.

Dated Monday, Dec. 1, Commissioners were notified of the letter moments before the meeting began.  

Truman began reading: “Dear Mrs. Truman and Mr. Sauer, on Monday, November 10, 2025, the Gates County Commissioner voted on a resolution to approve funding of $50,000 to the Gates County Board of Education for the New Beginnings Daycare. The county commissioner stated they would approve the funding at their next meeting. Consequently, the Gates County Board of Education passed a motion to accept the $50,000 to keep the New Beginnings Daycare open to a date of February 26, 2026, with the hours of 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday.”

Truman continued, “The funding would allow the Board of Education to sustain the daycare within the county while seeking private funding or ownership. However, at the November 19, 2025 meeting of the Gates County Board of Commissioners, a motion was made and approved not to provide the Board of Education with $50,000 to continue the daycare operation, but to provide $50,000 with the required match of $50,000 by the Board of Education for the continued operation of the daycare. While the Board of Education is appreciative of the offer of additional funding, the funding approved by the county commissioners is very different from what was stated at the November 10th collaborative meeting.”

The letter went on to say the school board ultimately declined the new matched-funding offer.

“On November 26, 2025, in open session of a meeting of the Gates County Board of Education, a motion was made and unanimously approved to respectfully decline the new offer of funding with the required match. The decision was based on our finance director’s recommendation of not being able to sustain the daycare with more school district funding. As a school district, we cannot continue to fund a program that is not at minimal breaking even and cannot continue to contribute more school district funds to the daycare. Therefore, the New Beginnings Daycare will close with the last day of operation being Wednesday, December 31, 2025.”

The board’s letter ended with a note that efforts to find outside solutions would continue:

“The Board of Education will continue to search for private funding or companies and individuals that are interested in taking care of the daycare.”

The letter was signed, Sallie J. Ryan, Chairwoman, Gates County Board of Education.

Commissioners say school board struggles go far beyond daycare

After the letter was read, commissioners began a candid, sometimes blunt discussion of the school board’s finances and management challenges.

Commissioner Nathan Berryman emphasized that the school board has the authority — and responsibility — to make its own operational decisions.

“Ultimately, this is a decision of the school board and how they want to run their organization that they are in charge of. The county systems put them in charge of running that. And so at the end of the day, it is ultimately their decision to do that,” he said. “The county commissioners gave them funding and an opportunity to keep it open if they so wish. Yes, we did have to make some stipulations to that. But we have to do that to make sure that we are good stewards with our own county money that’s been given to us by the citizens of Gates County.”

Berryman said the public expects more oversight from the school board.

“And so, overwhelmingly, the citizens of Gates County want to see more transparency with the school board. They want to see better fiscal management, and we’re giving them an opportunity to show that better fiscal management through these types of steps.”

He added that the daycare issue is only one symptom of broader budgetary concerns.

“So, I still look forward to working with the school board over this coming year, because they got a lot of challenges out in front of them. And like I said, the daycare situation is just a small piece of an overall larger problem that the school system has with the overspending that they have going on right now.”

He concluded by reiterating that the county wants continued collaboration.

“So we’re gonna work with them, we’re gonna continue to work with them, as good stewards of the county’s money. And, we’ll see how that goes.”

Complaint of “non-responsive” communication

The discussion then turned to Commissioner Dave Forsythe, who offered some of the sharpest criticism of the school board’s operations and communication practices.

Forsythe said he agreed with earlier comments, “So lots of things that you (Berryman) said. I don’t disagree with anything you said.” He said expectations for improved communication have not been met.

“One of the things was when we promised because the way they were perceiving it, to fund $50,000, it was under the impression they were going to do some things to try and market and start addressing costs and everything. They’ve been non-responsive. I’m sorry, folks, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I think they’ve been very non-responsive with everything we’ve asked for.”

Forsythe cited repeated attempts by county officials to obtain information.

“I know for a fact that the county managers tried to reach out numerous times over the last several months, got stonewalled for it. They came to us back in May with an unrealistic budget expectation, doubling their budget, didn’t discuss it with us at all, didn’t talk to us.”

He said the lack of earlier transparency around the daycare issue was particularly frustrating.

“And only during joint session when we pushed for, when I specifically pushed, ‘At least give your top five priorities,’ did they even talk about stuff. They didn’t bring up this daycare situation at all then. They didn’t mention it.”

Forsythe also revisited a past financial rescue effort.

“I mean, when they were in dire shape, like two years ago or whatever, came in suddenly and needed $800,000. ‘Got to have $800,000.’ I wasn’t on this board yet, but the board here said, ‘Hey, we’ll give you $800,000, but you got to meet with us regularly, talk to us, coordinate with us.’ That’s utterly failed.”

He pointed to a recent consultant’s study suggesting major potential savings.

“Quite frankly, the study that just came out that clearly annotates that somewhere between $600,000 and maybe a million and a half dollars a year could be saved by downsizing, that should have been done maybe as much as a decade ago, only happened because we pushed them.”

He said the district’s own auditor made unusually direct recommendations for cost-cutting.

“And I’ll be honest with you, I think at this point when they’re auditing and specifically says that they need to be doing cost-cutting measures, something that Chairman Truman noted is extremely unusual for an auditor to say something like that.”

To say the school district’s finances are wickety-whack is in understatement — there is talk of closing an elementary school — see our story here.

From there, Forsythe announced that he believed an outside review had become necessary.

“I think at this point, it’s time for us to ask the state auditor to come in and audit our school board, our school system’s funding.”

He also criticized what he described as delays or refusals to release information.

“It’s beyond belief that this goes on, that information is provided to us only at the last second right before a meeting, that routine public requests for information are being stonewalled and denied. And we all know that that’s happened because of apparently personal animosity between people asking for information.”

The solution, he said, was an independent review by the state.

“It’s time for us to ask the state auditor, and if everything’s on the up and up, if everything’s clear and wonderful, that’ll be good. It’ll vindicate them as being, ‘Oh, this is beyond their control,’ for however many years that’s been happening. But at the same time, the auditor is the one that can look in and give an independent perspective.”

Forsythe formally made a motion:

“And we have a state auditor right now that’s very active and I’d like to ask, Forsythe made a motion that board request the state auditor to come in and audit our school board’s finances.

Commissioner Berryman responded simply, “I think it’s a great idea.”

Commissioner Jonathan Craddock added that county agencies are held to standards the school board should also meet.

“We’re held to a standard. We’re audited every year. We pay someone to audit us every year. It’s what we have to do. There’s laws and general statutes behind it, so I think it’s a great idea, Mr. Forsythe, and my vote will tell that.”

Commissioners then discussed drafting a letter to the State Auditor, with Commissioner Berryman requesting it be “more pointed.”

He said, ”… the letter that we send to the state auditor is maybe be a little bit more pointed. So if we can work on that with the county manager to make sure we have the language in there that we need to.”

County Manager Scott Sauer said a draft of the letter will be written and sen to the board for review and comment and, and any necessary edits.

Forsythe closed with a personal pledge:

“And I will say this. Now, don’t get me roused up about, if we can’t because legal reason as a board do that, I’m gonna do it independently. I’m gonna ask for it myself. I’m that committed to it.”

The board then returned to its regular agenda – more about that in a future story.