Why are you running for county commissioner?

Simply stated, I believe that I can make a difference and bring experience to the board from the private sector. I have experience with creating and maintaining jobs in Halifax County, as well as extensive experience on a school board. These are the two biggest issues facing the county and we need someone who has experience and is willing to tackle the hard issues.

Are you for or against school merger?

I am very much against school merger. I am very much for improving the educational opportunities for all children in Halifax County.

I have not seen one thing that indicates that merging the three school systems in Halifax County will improve student achievement. We have plenty of problems to work on in an un-merged system. Merging the systems will exacerbate those problems. We need parents focused on the education of their children. That is the major problem with student achievement in Halifax County.

I believe with the positive lead of county commissioners, school leaders, and community leaders we can start changing the environment of the family as it relates to their role in education.

It will not be easy, but we must rise up and meet the challenge. Oftentimes the hardest part is getting started. If we band together and get started on that problem in all three systems, we can make a dramatic impact on student achievement.

Although you may have answered this question please explain what you feel the economic advantages or disadvantages of merger are.

I do not believe there is any economic advantage of county commissioner-forced merger for Halifax County. There are many economic disadvantages of a county commissioner-forced merger to Halifax County and a couple of them are:

There would be a significant loss of good jobs in the county that would negatively impact families all over the county. I have asked the state for an estimate of the number of jobs that would be lost. As of this writing, I have not received one.

These jobs would not only be central office staff, but would also include principals, assistant principals, teachers, teachers’ assistants, and a multitude of other support personnel. Most likely, the only job class that would see an incline would be bus drivers. We have over 10 percent unemployment in this county. The last thing we need to do is add to the unemployment rate of the county with a forced county commissioner merger. Halifax County would suffer a direct cut of 1.4 million dollars a year from the state as a result of merger.

The most significant economic impact of a forced merger will be the catastrophic mandatory funding requirement. State law mandates that the county fund a commissioner-initiated school merger with local dollars to the resulting system in years after at least at the highest level of any of the pre-existing Local Education Agency over the past five years.

I have done the study. It is a commitment of over $10 million dollars per year and, if funded with only tax revenue, will require an additional 31 cents of tax over the existing tax rate.

That will give Halifax County the distinction of being the county with the highest property tax rate in the state of North Carolina while remaining one of the top five poorest.

In all of my years of studying, reading, and applying economic theory, I have never heard of a theory that advocates taxing the poorest people at the highest rate.

In addition to the people, companies will face the same tax rate on their buildings, existing equipment, and any other capital equipment that they may have planned to add. These companies will seek alternatives to this burden, putting further pressure on unemployment rates in Halifax County. Can the county survive? I do not think so.

Do you feel there are any alternatives to merger that could be explored?

Yes. The first is good sound leadership from the school boards. People need to become involved in their child’s education, starting with the people they choose to lead their school system. All school board members should be held accountable for the job they have done. In addition, a good first step would be to have all three systems’ parental involvement teams collaborate. They could develop important techniques in solving the problems of family involvement in the education process that I mentioned earlier. I would start with that. Certainly many other things would develop. Which report do you feel is more valid, The UNC Center for Civil Rights Study or the Evergreen Report. Please explain why.

The UNC center of Civil Rights study was written from a very biased point of view. It only tells one side of the story. I believe the conclusion was developed and then its authors set out to prove it with a study. I do think they did a good job with the historical portion of the report. The Evergreen Report was written after an extensive study of all three school systems was completed. It attempts to address educational opportunities that could be gained by operating at higher levels of efficiency. It identifies areas that could save the systems money that could in turn be spent in other areas to raise student achievement. In addition, it recognizes that there would be significant cost to the county residents because of the funding requirement mentioned above. It also does not recommend commissioner-forced merger. Therefore, I believe it is the more valid of the two.

The County's fund balance has dipped dangerously low. Please explain how you think this happened. Please explain what needs to be done to get it back up to acceptable levels.

As a commissioner I will review every single line item of expenditures in an effort to ensure that every tax payer penny is being spent in the best way possible. I think the first step to bringing the fund balance back to a respectable level is a comprehensive study on spending. As a part of the RRGSD board of education we lived through one of the toughest budget seasons ever. We survived with a very healthy fund balance primarily because we developed a systematic approach.

We first decided what programs we had to provide and what each cost. After you have the answer to the question, you allot what you have left based on the importance of the program you are funding. In this process it is necessary to look at that program as a whole and not the individual pieces. I would bring this same approach to the County because it is proven. It is my belief that government should live within it means and should expand revenue through economic growth and not by raising taxes on one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. In closing, I would like to thank rrspin for the opportunity to express my thoughts to the citizens of Halifax County.

In addition, I encourage everyone to vote. Study and find the candidate that you think will best serve all of the residents of the County and then exercise your most basic right as an American.