A deadlock on a vote to set a public hearing for a proposed $58 million school bond referendum effectively halts the project for now.

Halifax County commissioners today went through several administrative matters concerning the project but a vote to set an actual public hearing date ended with board members Vernon Bryant, Rachel Hux and Rives Manning voting against the motion. Commissioners Carolyn Johnson, James Pierce and Marcelle Smith voted for setting a date.

The bond issue was designed to fund a new Manning Elementary School, renovations to Weldon High School and help facilitate an overall school improvement plan in the county school system.

“There's been discussions on this for a couple of years,” Manning said. “I don't think we've educated the commissioners enough and the general public enough. I feel like we need to get more information to the commissioners and the general public. I feel like we've been blindsided.”

Bryant agreed. “I don't think we've dotted the I's and crossed the T's.”

Bryant didn't dispute that the needs the bond issue would address aren't real. “I'm concerned about the amount they've submitted.”

Bryant also believes that if needs in the three school systems are addressed, then Halifax Community College should also be addressed. “We need to think it about it some more.”

Johnson, however, said she believed the public hearing was necessary. “I think a public hearing will give us some additional insight. The public hearing will give us an opportunity to see how the public is feeling.”

Hux said, “I think we're moving too fast a little bit.”

Rebecca Copeland, chair of the Coalition for Education and Economic Security, spoke on the matter during a public comment section on the agenda.

Copeland said, with the interest and principle, the bond obligation could cost the taxpayers some $97 million.

“We believe economic progress without improvements in our K-12 public education systems will be impossible to achieve,” she said. “Halifax County's June unemployment rate increased for the second consecutive month to 10 percent, the third highest in North Carolina.”

While three of the four schools in Roanoke Rapids have been modernized and while the same number in Weldon are either relatively new or remodeled, she said five of 12 school facilities in the county school system have not had a major repair or renovation since they were built between 1957 and 1960.

She said the Evergreen Solutions School Improvement Report speaks of a critical need for the development and yearly review and implementation of a continuous five-year capital outlay plan. “If an adequate or even marginal countywide improvement plan had existed, it would be referenced in the EGS report. To prioritize expenditures of $97 million on a 2012 three-school study (The MBJA Architects report) sounds like a scam.”

The coalition, Copeland said, agrees with the Evergreen report that Weldon High School should be closed. “The (Evergreen) report listed excess capacity at nearby high schools … The report provided a lengthy discussion on a possible method to accomplish closure and student transfer — saving $8 million and utilizing existing facilities. Why keep wasting taxpayer dollars for studies, only to ignore the recommendations?”

Copeland said the Coalition believes if a new Manning school is built, it should be done contingent on increasing the capacity necessary to serve students who live closer to the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District who currently must attend county schools. “These two changes would send a strong message to all communities that school districts and county commissioners are working together to improve education and diversity — economically, academically and socially. A new eastman K-8 school is an important step in the Halifax County schools plans to become a seven-facility district — closing five schools, more than the (Evergreen) report recommends.”

She said the Coalition believes the county should consider non-traditional solutions as well. “Isn't a $97 million bill an expensive overreach for this county's current economic status and forecast? Were there any homework assignments completed or dd someone just pull these exponential numbers out of the sky?”

In challenging the board to come up with other solutions, Copeland said, “Halifax County taxpayers and students need the three districts and their boards of education to work together to develop and prioritize an affordable countywide improvement plan and then push commissioners to prompt action.”