Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said that the board deliberately resisted pressure from Guilford County Schools to approve a larger property tax increase this year, arguing that commissioners had promised taxpayers they wouldn’t raise taxes any more than necessary.

Alston made the comments in an interview with the Rhino Times after calling a Friday, June 26 press conference to respond to criticism from Guilford County Schools. The school system warned that the county’s budget could force teacher and staff layoffs and criticized the commissioners for approving raises for county employees while not providing enough local funding to support comparable raises for school employees.

Alston said that that criticism doesn’t tell the whole story.

“No one on this Board wants to see teachers lose their jobs,” Alston said during the press conference. “No one wants to see school employees worried about their future. No one wants to see our students receive anything less than the education they deserve.”

At the same time, he said, commissioners also have an obligation to taxpayers and to every county department that depends on county funding.

Guilford County Schools sought nearly $19 million in additional operating money this year. Commissioners approved the county manager’s recommendation, increasing local operating funding by about $5.6 million over last year, but they declined to provide the additional funding that school officials requested.

During the interview, Alston said commissioners intentionally held the property tax increase to 5.9 cents.

“We’d always said we didn’t want to put any more on the taxpayers than we had to,” Alston said. “We tightened our belt and the school system will have to tighten their belt. Just because you can raise taxes doesn’t mean you should raise taxes.”

Alston said the board never wanted to cross the 6-cent mark.

Many county residents did not want a tax increase at all, but that was never really an option with this board.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate for us to raise taxes more than that at this time,” he said. “I did not give in to the school system.”

According to Alston, school officials argued that commissioners approved raises for county employees while not providing enough money for school employees to receive comparable raises.

“They said we should’ve been looking out for their employees also,” Alston said.

His response was that county government has many responsibilities extending far beyond public education.

“This isn’t about choosing one group of employees over another,” Alston said during the press conference. “It’s about meeting our responsibilities to everyone we serve.”

He noted that county government must recruit and retain deputy sheriffs, detention officers, paramedics, nurses, social workers, behavioral health professionals and many other employees who provide services required by law.

Alston also argued that North Carolina places the primary responsibility for funding teacher salaries and school operations on the state, not counties.

“The state is also responsible for funding schools,” he said during the interview. “That’s the state’s obligation to give raises to the teachers, not the county.”

During the press conference, Alston emphasized that Guilford County increased, rather than reduced, its support for the school system.

The county approved $288.1 million for Guilford County Schools’ operating expenses, a 2 percent increase over last year. In addition, the county will provide $26.9 million to pay debt service on school construction bonds previously approved by voters.

That debt service has been and will continue to take a big chunk of the county’s taxpayer money because they are paying back about $3.3 billion when recent school bonds are included with interest.  The final bill could be more than that depending on what interest rates do.

“County funding for Guilford County Schools was not cut,” Alston said. “County funding increased.”

He noted that approximately 43 percent of the county’s General Fund budget goes directly to education.

“Nearly half of every local tax dollar we spend goes to supporting our public schools,” Alston said. “That is a significant commitment by any measure.”

He noted that if the schools cut their budget by 1 percent, they would make up the remainder of their request.

He contrasted that commitment with the county’s obligations to fund dozens of other services, including the Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Medical Services, Public Health, Social Services, the courts, elections, libraries, parks, Veterans Services and other legally required programs.

“Those are not optional services,” Alston said. “They are mandated by law. We can’t simply stop providing them.”

Alston also pointed to the budget turmoil caused by Senate Bill 889, which prevented Guilford County from using its 2026 property revaluation for this year’s budget.

According to Alston, commissioners had expected to have substantially more revenue available before the legislation changed the county’s financial outlook.

“We would’ve given them more money this year,” Alston said during the interview. “But we couldn’t do that because of Senate Bill 889.”

Technically, they could have but it would have driven the tax rate nearly 2 cents higher.

He added that the county also lost millions of dollars in anticipated state and federal revenue during the final weeks of the budget process.

Alston revealed during the interview that the county commissioners and school leaders held a conference call meeting on Wednesday evening before the budget was adopted in a last attempt to resolve their differences.

According to Alston, school officials urged commissioners to approve a larger tax increase and warned that they would publicly criticize the county if commissioners declined.

“They said, ‘We’re probably going to be issuing a press release saying that you all are looking out for your employees and not looking out for ours,'” Alston recalled. “I said, ‘Well, you have to do what you have to do, but we’re not going to be raising taxes.'”

Despite the disagreement, Alston said he still considers county government and Guilford County Schools to be partners.

“We remain committed to working collaboratively with the Board of Education and the leadership of Guilford County Schools,” he said during the press conference. “We are partners. We should never become adversaries.”

Alston said he hopes a proposed quarter-cent local sales tax referendum expected to appear on the November ballot will eventually provide another recurring source of education funding without placing the entire burden on property owners and Guilford County residents.

He noted that most of the new revenue, if voters approve the tax, would go to public schools, with additional funding dedicated to Guilford Technical Community College and rural fire districts.  That sales tax hike has been voted down many times since it was first offered as an option from the state in 2008, however, for this November the commissioners got the state to allow the exact wording on the ballot as to how the money will be used.

“It’s not all on the backs of the property taxpayers,” Alston said during the interview. “Forty percent of the sales taxes are paid by people outside Guilford County.”

For now, however, Alston said commissioners believe they made the right decision by holding the line on taxes despite intense pressure to do otherwise.

“We didn’t just cave in to the school system because they wanted more money,” Alston said. “We promised the taxpayers we weren’t going to take any more money than we needed, and we kept that promise.”

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