By Miles Layton

COLUMBIA — You know it’s serious when the lawyers came to the meeting wearing suits and power ties and there was a packed house, standing room only, inside the Wildcats’ media center Monday morning when Tyrrell County’s two governing boards sat down together for mediation session aimed at resolving a months-long dispute over where to build a new $62 million school and who will pay for the land beneath it — a fight that has already run up legal bills for both sides and threatens to eat into the construction timeline attached to the state grant funding the project.

My phone crapped out – too many dachshund and beach pictures absorbed all the memory – so I’m using a file photo instead of the bridge, maybe symbolic in that we all hope these boards can bridge the gap between them. 

And there will be a separate story about retired Superintendent Nelson Smith’s remarks in a separate forum held after the joint meeting – very enlightening.  

The Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education convened jointly, with a judge overseeing the mediation process, in an effort to break a stalemate that began after commissioners approved this year’s school budget with conditions the school board says it cannot accept. Both boards are scheduled to reconvene tonight at 5 p.m. to continue the discussion. More on that to come.

Construction on the new pre-K-through-13 campus is expected to wrap up in 2029, assuming the funding dispute is resolved and building begins in the coming months. The school district received the $62 million capital needs grant from the state last November to consolidate its aging schools into a single modern campus serving students countywide.

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Commissioners open the meeting

Board of Commissioners Chairman Jordan Davis opened the session by first taking care of a procedural matter, moving a previously scheduled 10 a.m. meeting to 5 p.m. in the commissioner chambers.

Davis then laid out what commissioners hoped to accomplish. 

“Board of Commissioners is here to listen, discuss the issues, cooperate, if possible, and to find a solution that’s best for the county as a whole,” he said. “We hope to receive additional information about the current construction plans, how costs compare between various sites and Board of Education’s position on several issues that we believe can help work the boards work together.”

Liverman: “Let’s get this right”

Board of Education Chairwoman Joni Liverman then called her board’s portion of the meeting to order, framing the moment in personal terms. 

“As someone whose family has been in Tyrrell County for generations, as a product of this school system and a former employee of this school system, this issue is extremely important to me. It’s very close,” she said.  

Liverman said she came from a family with deep ties to both boards — her father served as a county commissioner and her grandparent served on the board of education — and that the perspective had left her sympathetic to both sides. “I really hate that it’s come to this, but I understand both sides,” she said.

She acknowledged the toll the dispute has already taken. “The Board of Education and the county commissioners, we’re incurring additional costs for attorney fees. And we as a board do not take that lightly,” Liverman said. “Because of this dispute resolution process, as a board, we felt that we had to go this route in order to address the budgetary issues.”

Liverman described the grant as a rare opportunity. “This year, we have an extraordinary opportunity with this $62 million needs-based grant to serve the community and build a pre-K through 13 campus,” she said, calling it “a once-in-a-lifetime generation investment” that would replace aging buildings and cut long-term costs for insurance and maintenance.

She also stressed the grant’s deadlines. “From the moment that the North Carolina Department of Instruction awarded Tyrrell County Schools this money, we began a timeline of 24 months. We have 24 months to begin construction,” she said. “As with any major construction, time and inflation are important considerations.”

Liverman closed by appealing to common ground. “Whether it is the Tyrrell County commissioners, the Tyrrell County Board of Education or Tyrrell County citizens, we have one word that unites us, and that is Tyrrell,” she said. “I promise you if we focus on what unites us more so than what divides us, we will find a common ground to best support the entire community and our generation of students for years to come. A child’s zip code should never determine their quality of education or the opportunities that are available to them. So today, let’s get this right for the students in the zip code of 27925 in Tyrrell County. Our next generation depends on it.”

Superintendent details budget dispute

Tyrrell County Schools Superintendent Brianna Williams followed, laying out the two reasons the district initiated the formal budget dispute process. “First, the current local expense was insufficient. The allocation failed to include the $120,000 we requested to fund two elementary teaching positions,” Williams said. “Over the last several years, the school system has not received adequate funding.”

Williams said the appropriation for local current expense has declined in nominal terms every year since 2023-24, and that adjusting for inflation, the district has seen a decline of more than $125,000 since 2023-24 and more than $200,000 since 2011-12. She said the shortfall has forced the district “to make cuts, had to do more with less and failed to make necessary repairs year after year.”

She then ran through a list of deferred maintenance issues, saying four bathrooms at Tyrrell Elementary have been shut down because of unrepaired plumbing and drainage problems, that roofs at all three schools are in disrepair, and that the maintenance department has been patching holes and leaks with temporary fixes. She said exterior wooden doors with chicken wire in the glass at the elementary school need to be replaced for safety, and that HVAC systems need replacing in all middle school classrooms as well as in the auditorium, where seating also needs to be replaced.

The second reason for the dispute, Williams said, was that the capital outlay allocation was insufficient. In addition to the county not approving $100,000 requested for building repairs, she said, “the county failed to allocate the $500,000 we requested to purchase land for our identified site and construct a new school with the $62 million gifted to us through the state.”

Williams said she sees two straightforward paths forward. “First, the option would cost the county zero dollars,” she said. “The property owner of the site we want to purchase from has confirmed that he is willing to swap the land for the current elementary school site.”

If a land swap is not workable because the county wants to retain the old elementary site, she said the district’s second ask is $500,000 toward a site adjacent to the current high school in Columbia — “one percent of $62 million… a one percent investment.”

She said the county has rejected both options and that certified minutes from a May 29 meeting show commissioners want the new school built on property the board already owns, or on property purchased well outside Columbia, and only if the board agrees to lease the school properties back to the county for one dollar in closed session.

Williams said the new campus would benefit the broader community beyond its use as a school, citing potential common spaces for community events, a larger cafeteria for catered events, use of fields and facilities by the recreation department, healthcare partnerships, and possibly a regional library or community college classes for adults.

“When county government and local public schools align, our entire community wins,” she said.

County manager lays out commissioners’ position

County Manager David Clegg spoke last, framing the commissioners’ side of the dispute. He said the Board of Education’s resolution objecting to appropriations in both the current local expense fund and the capital outlay fund triggered Monday’s process. He noted that commissioners had fully met the school system’s funding request in each of the past five years, including last year’s $718,725.

Clegg said the schools initially requested $746,265 in April — a similar amount to prior years — before revising the request in May to $1,246,265, an increase of $565,000 over the previous year. That request included newly funded local teacher supplements, two new teaching positions totaling $120,000, $100,000 for building repairs, and $500,000 to purchase land for a new school.

Clegg said commissioners funded the current expense amount, approved the teacher supplement, and approved $100,000 for repairs from lottery funds “as has been prior practice.” He said commissioners also “provided a path” for the $500,000 in land funding, but with conditions tied to the site.

He said the original plan presented to commissioners when the grant application was being prepared showed new construction occurring only on existing school property, and that commissioners had been led to believe no additional land purchase or county funding would be necessary. “The current plan and budget request, however, requires both additional land and funds from the county,” Clegg said.

Given the amount of developable land in the county and the relative scarcity of available commercial property in and near town, Clegg said commissioners believe a different site might best serve the county, while acknowledging financial constraints could complicate that. He said commissioners remain “open to listening to any information regarding the comparative costs from different sites and what can be achieved within the limits of the state grant and available funds.”

Clegg said commissioners relayed several items to the Board of Education’s counsel last week that they believe could move the two sides toward an agreement, and said those items, along with the site question, would be discussed further during Monday’s session.

Last thing

Both boards are set to reconvene at 5 p.m. today in the media center to continue the mediation. Whether the two sides can reach agreement on a site — and on who bears the cost of acquiring it — will determine how soon construction can begin on the new campus, and whether the district can meet the 24-month deadline attached to its state grant.