My goal has been to provide the citizens with factual information so they may make an informed decision in the upcoming election.

We have heard in forums that the existing law governing school mergers will not have to be followed to the letter and that exceptions have been made for the funding portion of the law in the past.

I decided to find out if a merger at the hands of a County Commission has ever received a legislative exemption or “work-around” as James Pierce has suggested.

I collected the data used in school funding formulas and calculated the funding requirement of a merged school district so voters will know the true costs of school merger.

Since 1991 there have been seven Commissioner-initiated mergers in North Carolina. These mergers took place in Wayne, Lenoir, Durham, Henderson, Alamance, Stanly and Cleveland Counties.

None of these mergers were granted the sort of legislative exemption that has been promised by candidate James Pierce.

When you hear that there have been exceptions to the funding requirement for school mergers in other parts of the state, know that is simply not true.

Since a legislative exemption has not been made in the past, I calculated the funding requirement under the existing law. I contacted the finance division of North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for further direction.

To assure compliance with the law and ensure consistency, the North Carolina State Board of Education developed a policy for use by counties considering merger: North Carolina State Board of Education Policy TCS-F.

The title: Policy delineating guidelines for the computations of local funding in merger plans that are initiated and completed by local boards and county commissioners explains it all.

This policy suggests that audited financial statements be used to compute the funding requirement. This is important for accuracy because these reports give the actual dollars received instead of dollars budgeted.

After evaluating the revenue received by our three school systems for the last five years we find that Weldon received at least $1,948.46 per child in local funds in the year ending 2012.

That is the magic number because it is the highest amount of local funding received over the last five years per child and shall be used for calculating the minimum funding requirements in years after.

The cost of providing that level of local funding to each student in a county-wide merged system would be $15,235,015.29.

That is $10,481,682.83 more than is currently appropriated by the Board of Commissioners in Halifax County.

If that difference is funded with additional revenue from the base tax rate, at least a 31 cents increase would be required. That would be a 45.6 percent tax increase and would drive taxes in Halifax County to the highest level in the state of North Carolina at .99/$100 of valuation.

In closing I would like everyone to consider the economic devastation that would result if forced school merger became a reality in Halifax County. Industry growth, economic development, and job creation would come to an end.

We have heard claims from Mr. Pierce and Rev. O.D. Sykes that they know a way to work around this funding requirement.

Well, let them prove it. Ask where the reduced funding requirement guidelines are. We made our calculations by following the laws and policies that have been used without exception since 1991.

Ask Mr. Pierce how Roanoke Rapids and Weldon would get a tax decrease as he has claimed on his web page.

Even if a funding exemption were obtained, students in the Weldon School District would have their current funding levels cut.

Are Rev. Sykes and Mr. Pierce willing to take funding away from students in Weldon?

In the end the law delineating the funding requirement by the County Commissioners is simple.

It states that county commissioners may force merger of the school systems in their county, but they may not reduce funding to any of the pre-existing systems in the process.

Neither James Pierce nor any other Halifax County Commissioner can both force merger and reduce funding.

Patrick Qualls

Roanoke Rapids