By FULLER ROYAL

Columbus County’s status as one of the poorest counties in the state continues as 93 counties did a better job of funding their local school systems during school year 2003-04.

That finding and others were published in the 2005 Local School Finance Study by the Public School Forum of North Carolina.

The 94th place Columbus County dropped from last year’s position of 93rd in actual effort to fund local schools.

When low-wealth supplementary funding from the state is figured in, Columbus ranks dead last in its actual effort.

“We know our county is a low-wealth county and there is only so much we can do with our tax base,” said Columbus County Schools Superintendent Dan Strickland. “One thing we have to look at is industrial growth and economic development.”

Whiteville City Schools Superintendent Danny McPherson said that the lack of an affluent tax base denies both local school systems additional teachers, additional teacher aides, additional school nurses and the levels of technology that wealthier schools’ students have access to.

“It boils down to an equity issue,” he said. “And it impacts what we can offer in our classrooms.”

McPherson said that low-wealth funding does help the city and county schools significantly, but that more could and should be done.

McPherson said the situation is critical, especially when it comes to the age of the city school’s facilities.

The average local funding across the state is $1,395 per student. In Columbus County, only $587 is spent per student and that amount includes $79 per student to pay off past local school bonds or loans.

Columbus County is one of 64 counties below the state average.

For Columbus County to provide its students with the same level of funding as the top 25 counties, it would have to increase its per pupil spending nearly four times what it provides now.

The six counties behind Columbus locally fund students at the rates of $571 in Greene County to $299 in Swain County, the lowest in the state.

Orange County continues to take the top spot with $3,314 in local funding per student. Orange County has a supplemental school tax with revenues of $12.7 million annually.

Dare County is next, providing $2,679 in local funds for each of its students.

New Hanover County was fifth in the state, with $2,179 for each student. Brunswick was ninth with $1,933 per student.

Bladen County ranked 81st with $741 for each student. Robeson County was 98th with only $503 for each student.

Local funding is applied mainly to capital expenditures and operating expenses. It also helps pay for debt service.

Columbus County allotted $87 per student in capital outlay spending. The state average was $547. Dare County allotted $1,219 per student for capital spending.

Columbus County’s problem is that it is a poor county and one of two counties in the state to actually lose population since 2000.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction estimates that Columbus County Schools will lose 660 students during the next decade. The Whiteville City Schools will also see a decline in numbers.

With those declines, the state will eventually cut some funding to both systems, mainly in teaching slots and money for administration and textbooks.

Because Columbus County is considered poor, it qualifies for low-wealth funding. In 2003-04, that amounted to $2.3 million proportionately divided between the city and county school systems.

With low wealth funding added at the rate of $242 per student, the total for local spending rises to $828 per student.

However, low wealth funding pushes the counties below Columbus to levels of per student spending above Columbus, leaving local students at the bottom of the state roster.

When low-wealth funding is added in, the average spending per student in the state moves to $1,493, up $98 from $1,395.

When small county funding is figured in, Hyde County moves to the top. Hyde only has 657 students and small county funding provided the schools there with $1.2 million.

Without small county funding, Hyde was spending $1,528 per student. With small county funding, that per student total rose to $3,479, a difference of $1,951.

Columbus County receives no small county funding.

The Forum also determined the 100 counties’ rankings by their abilities to pay.

Columbus County moved up from 93rd to 91st in its ability to pay.

In 2003-04. Columbus had an adjusted tax base of $2.9 billion dollars with adjusted property tax revenue of $17.3 million and non-property tax revenue of $7.6 million.

Columbus had a per capita income of $22,746.

In contrast, Brunswick County had an adjusted tax base of $13.2 billion with $95.2 million in revenue and a per capita income of $24,095.

The Forum has found that since 1997, the local school spending gap between the state’s poorest and wealthiest counties has grown 62 percent.
The gap in funding per student between the wealthiest counties and the poorest counties is $1,630.

North Carolina ranks 38th in the nation for per pupil spending, ranking below all of its neighbors except Tennessee.

John Dornan, executive director of the Forum, said that already hard-pressed counties can’t take up the financial slack as less of the state annual budget is devoted to school improvement.

The Forum found that counties that are growing are able to support their schools with modest tax efforts while shrinking counties, such as Columbus, are having to tax themselves at far higher rates.

Dornan added that the state’s poorest counties are typically serving the state’s poorest young people, most from low income homes and who can be designated as being educationally at-risk.

Last year, the top 10 spending counties spent an average of $2,156 per pupil or $56,506 per classroom, while the bottom 10 spending counties, including Columbus, spent an average of only $526 per pupil or $13,200 per classroom.

Those same top 10 counties have an average of $1.2 million in taxable real estate for each public school child while the bottom 10 counties only have $256,000 in taxable real estate per child.

Among the Forum’s other findings was that the state’s poorest counties still disproportionately shouldered the social services burden.

The state’s poorest counties had only 50 percent of their adjusted tax revenue remaining after paying for mandated social services. The wealthier counties had 82 percent of their revenue remaining after paying for those same services.

The National Association of State Budget Officers estimates that Medicaid will soon replace education as the largest expense in state government budgets.

The Forum reports that as Medicaid and other mandated social service expenditures continue to consume larger parts of county and state budgets, the problem will worsen and the state’s poorest counties will bear the brunt of the expense.

Last year, North Carolina counties spent $3 billion on public education with 59 percent going to current expenses and 41 percent to capital expenditures and repaying school bond debt.

In all, North Carolina Public Schools spent $9.2 billion in 2003-04 using state, federal and local resources.

State funding accounted for 65.1 percent of the expenditures while federal funding accounted for 10.4 percent. Local funding accounted for 24.5 percent.

Nationwide, state funding accounted for 48 percent of funding and federal dollars accounted for 8.6 percent of school budgets. Also nationally, 43.5 percent of school funding was provided locally.

The average local teacher salary supplement in the state’s poorest counties is $713 while in the wealthiest counties, it’s $3,426.

In the poorest counties, 1.5 percent of local funding is used to help pay for extra teachers while in the wealthier counties, 12 percent is used to pay for additional teachers.

The poorest counties have had to decrease the number of teacher aides because only 7 percent of the local funds can be used. In the wealthiest counties, 15 percent of the local budget is used for teacher aides.