The Guilford County commissioners are in the process of taking the budget recommended by Guilford County Manager Mike Halford and making it their own.
There are last minute requests coming in from all sides.
At this time of year, for instance, the Guilford County school system is always the big story because school leaders constantly want more money and Guilford County Schools has an army of advocates. The school system consistently takes up about 45 percent of the county’s budget.
But Guilford County government has about 40 departments and all of them have needs – especially in these times when inflation has been rising all around.
On Tuesday, June 11, the commissioners held a work session mainly to hear the last-minute pleas of school officials, and the board has one more budget work session on Monday, June 17 before the board is scheduled to adopt a final county budget on Thursday, June 20. That’s the most important thing that the board does each year and after the budget is adopted many commissioners take their summer vacation.
Alston told the Rhino Times that the final budget work session next week would include several items.
“We will probably talk more about school funding and Sherriff’s Office funding,” Alston said.
Other commissioners said they wanted to have more discussion about the fee increases that Halford has proposed in the new budget.
Commissioner Frankie Jones for instance said he was “trying to take a look at all the fees” and consider those increases before the Monday work session.
This year, the board seems less inclined to give money out as freely as in past years.
Commissioner Kay Cashion, among others, said this week that the board is seeing a lot of demand from the schools and from county departments – but not enough dollars to fill those needs.
“It’s a tight budget this year,” Cashion said.
The work session is open to the public; however, the commissioners don’t usually allow any speakers from the floor at budget meetings.
There will be speakers from the floor allowed on June 20 at the regular meeting before the budget is adopted; however, usually by that time the budget has already been agreed upon and drawn up.
The work session will take place on Monday, June 17 at 3:30 p.m. and will be held in the Carolyn Coleman Conference room on the first floor of the Old Guilford County Court House at 301 W. Market St. in downtown Greensboro.
You can watch the session on Zoom by going to https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1600290597 and completing the webinar registration and selecting the option to join from the confirmation email prior to the start of the meeting.
The meeting will also be livestreamed on Guilford County’s Facebook page.
Copies of the work session agenda will be available online shortly before the meeting starts at https://guilford.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.
You may contact Deputy Clerk Ariane Webb at awebb@guilfordcountync.gov if you have any questions.
Will all the personal pet projects be dropped out of this tight budget? Will the unnessary DEI and other additional hires be eliminated from this tight budget? Was any consideration given for reducing taxes and helping the taxpayer in this tight budget?
Don’t forget to mention the 8 positions that skip created by himself for the racist mwbe department
You can remember at the next election.
I did at the last one. To bad not many of the democrats think for themselves Not a slo joe or Kamala fan either
It would take a damn hammer the size of Kernersville to iron it out properly.