By Miles Layton

COLUMBIA — When I walked into the Wildcats’ media center Monday evening, I gauged the mood from the Board of Education. After a lifetime of covering public meetings, you can tell a lot about what’s ahead based on the faces of elected officials when they are about to do something important. 

After months of legal wrangling over where to build a new pre-K-through-13 school and who would pay for the land under it, the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners and the Tyrrell County Board of Education came together Monday and did what neither side had managed to do on its own: find common ground.

BOE member Mike Cole’s face had a smile on it while BOE member Karen Clough was in an upbeat mood. While things were settling themselves out, Board member Jana Rawls said to me that God has a plan for everything – I agree. Since we see eye to eye on that, I knew that when the outcome of mediation was announced, Tyrrell County would benefit.  

Yes, there was a big crowd present for both meetings — the guy with the beard; that’s Willy Phillips and his wife, Feather, at the end of the row — both good people.

Earlier, two boards met Monday morning jointly for a mediation session, with a judge presiding, in an effort to resolve a dispute that began after commissioners approved this year’s school budget with conditions the school board said it could not accept. By the end of the day, both sides had signed off on a wide-ranging agreement that settles the funding fight, lays out a plan for the new campus, and — perhaps just as important to those in the room — restores a sense of partnership between the two governing bodies.

“We’re just excited about the future for the students in the zip code of 27925,” said Board of Education Chairwoman Joni Liverman after the vote. “What we bridged together today proves that working together can solve things, and the future is very bright.”

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A Long Day, and a Long Document

Liverman opened the school board’s session by reading the agreement in full for the benefit of residents watching online, acknowledging just how much ground it covered.

“So today was a long day, and you all are great sports for being here,” Liverman told board members and the audience. She then read a release stating that the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners and Tyrrell County Board of Education had reached a budget agreement, noting that each board approved the agreement at separate meetings on July 27, resolving the dispute the school board had initiated on June 5.

Photos of the agreement are posted at the end of the story.  

The agreement traces its roots to state law. Under North Carolina General Statute 115C-431, when a school board and county disagree over budget appropriations, the chairpersons of both boards must arrange a joint meeting within seven days of the county’s budget adoption, with a mediator presiding. That is exactly what happened Monday, following the county’s adoption of its annual budget ordinance on June 15.

Rather than let the dispute drag into further mediation or litigation, both sides chose to resolve it “cooperatively,” according to the agreement — a decision that shaped nearly every provision that followed.

The Financial Framework

At the heart of the agreement is a new funding plan for the 2026-27 fiscal year. The county agreed to appropriate $100,000 for capital outlay purposes and additional funding for the school system’s local current expense fund for the coming year.

The agreement also addresses the land needed for the new school. The school board plans to purchase at least 19 acres adjacent to the current high school in Columbia, and both parties agreed to cooperate in requesting $141,000 in public school building capital funds from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction by July 30. The county further agreed to amend its 2026-27 budget ordinance to direct $359,000 from restricted sales tax funds to the school board by August 15 to help cover the purchase.

Should the school board ultimately decide not to build the new school and instead sell the property, the agreement specifies that the sale proceeds would be returned to the original source of the funds — a safeguard both sides wanted in place before moving forward.

Building Together

Beyond the dollars and cents, the agreement restructures how the two boards will work together going forward. Commissioners will appoint two additional members to the Board of Education’s steering committee overseeing the design and construction of the new school, giving the county a direct role in shaping the project it’s helping fund.

The two boards also committed to meeting jointly at least once a year, in February or March, to review budgets and needs together, with board chairs and vice chairs agreeing to meet quarterly in between. It’s a structural change meant to prevent future disputes from reaching the point Monday’s mediation was called to resolve.

The agreement additionally settles the fate of two long-standing properties. Once the new school is complete and the current Tyrrell Elementary School is vacated, the school board will deed that property to the county — with no obligation to repair or renovate it beforehand. If the county sells the elementary school property before July 1, 2036, it must share half the proceeds with the school board. In a mirror arrangement, the county will deed ownership of its maintenance shop and bus garage property to the school board, with the same 50-50 proceeds split if that property is sold before the same 2036 deadline.

The county will also take over full responsibility for the county’s recreation department, effective July 1, with the two sides agreeing to negotiate a joint-use agreement for shared access to school facilities for recreational programming.

In exchange for the funding commitments laid out in the agreement, the school board formally released any claims against the county under the state statute governing local appropriation disputes.

The school board’s vote was unanimous. After a motion was made and seconded, board members Dr. Rawls, Mike, Bill and Karen each voted yes, followed by Liverman.

“The Power of Community”

For Superintendent Brianna Williams, who moved to Tyrrell County in October, Monday’s agreement was about more than numbers on a page.

“This shows you the power of good old Eastern North Carolina country people when we come together for our community,” Williams told the boards and the audience after the vote. “And I am so excited that I’m here.”

Williams, who has a four-year-old she plans to enroll in the new school system next year, said she was moved by the turnout of retired teachers, retired superintendents, business owners, and current and former school employees who came out to watch the process unfold.

“I cannot say enough about the power of community,” she said. “This was not something that our school board took lightly. This is not something that we wanted to do, but we felt like for the future generations of kids in [Tyrrell] County that we had to.”

She framed the new school as a legacy project. “This school bill could mean a hundred years’ worth of educating kids in this area,” Williams said, “so long after all of us in this room are dead and gone, and our children’s children’s children are going to school here.”

Williams also thanked retired educator Robin Dunbar and former superintendent Nelson Smith for their roles in the process, telling the audience Smith had earned a place in the community “just like all the educators in the room.”

Looking ahead to construction, Williams said she has been assured the $62 million project will stay on budget. “I have been assured that it’s not going to go one penny over, and it’s not going to cost taxpayers any money,” she said, adding that the district plans to survey the community on design choices, including the school’s mascot and logo, and to build joint-use spaces on campus. “But every single dollar that we spend in this county matters,” she said. “We all have to come together as a community and join hands and demand the respect that each of us deserves.”

The County’s Perspective

In a written statement, the Board of Commissioners struck a similarly conciliatory tone, confirming that the two boards “have resolved their differences relative to the FY 2026-2027 spending plan.” The statement said the agreement “paves the way for the Board of Education to pursue the construction of a new $62 million school for all grades.”

Commission’s full statement is posted at the end of this story.  

Commissioners noted the county will gain ownership of the current Tyrrell Elementary School once the new campus opens, land they said could be used “for a wide range of community utilization.” The statement also confirmed the county agreed to bring the school system’s operating budget in line with the prior year’s spending level, saying the board “was pleased to refine the Board of Education budget to reflect the previous year’s spending.”

Commissioners emphasized that most local education funding actually flows from the state. “The majority of the funds provided by the Board of Commissioners is from state sales tax distributions earmarked for utilization by the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the Board of Commissioners,” the statement said, adding that the county has “fully funded the Board of Education’s requests for each year in recent memory.”

The statement also acknowledged what had driven the dispute in the first place: a shift from the original plan, which envisioned building on existing school property, to a proposal requiring new land and additional funding. “The current proposed plan required additional land and funding,” commissioners wrote.

Despite the friction that produced, the county’s statement closed on an optimistic note. “The Board of Commissioners looks forward to working with the Board of Education as partners in both budgetary and construction issues going forward,” it read, while also asking residents to rely only on official statements from the two boards going forward.

A Fair Deal, in Smith’s View

Retired Superintendent Nelson Smith, whose earlier service gave him a unique vantage point on the dispute, said he backed the outcome — even the parts that didn’t go exactly as he might have preferred.

“I am okay with the outcome,” Smith said. “I would prefer to have the Tyrrell Elementary School remain under the ownership of the Board of Education,” he said, noting the district could otherwise have sold the property itself down the road. But he pointed to the profit-sharing terms in the agreement as a fair trade-off. “If they do sell it for a certain amount of time, they had to share the profits fifty percent with us. So, in all in all, I think it turned out really well.”

Smith said he would not have handled the underlying land dispute differently. “I would have done the same thing as superintendent,” he said. “I was not going to sacrifice $62 million for that land.”

Asked whether the agreement was good for the county as a whole, Smith didn’t hesitate. “It’s probably the best outcome for Tyrrell County,” he said. “I agree one hundred percent.”

What’s Next

With both boards’ approval secured, attention now turns to the details: finalizing the land purchase, seating the expanded steering committee, and keeping the $62 million project on track for completion in 2029.

For now, though, Monday marked a turning point — the moment two boards that had spent months at odds chose collaboration over conflict, with the county’s youngest residents standing to benefit most from the deal.

Agreement — click image to enlarge

Statement from the Tyrrell County Commission