The discourse continues.

After running a couple of what-if scenarios regarding funding for Beaufort County Schools past BCS Superintendent Don Phipps, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners decided to give Phipps – and the Beaufort County Board of Education – time to gather more information on how those what-if scenarios play out.

During its budget work session Thursday, the commissioners talked about funding for the school system, but they came to no final decision. The commissioners resume their budget work at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, including trying to determine how much county money goes to the school system and how that money will be allocated.

County Manager Paul Spruill’s proposed county budget for fiscal year 2011-2012 calls for giving the school system $13,258,010, with $937,860 of that amount for capital-outlay projects and $12,320,150 for its day-to-day operations budget. The school system requested $12,668,854 for its operations budget.

The $937,860 does not reflect money the school system may get from its share of N.C. Education Lottery proceeds. Spruill’s proposed budget has the school system receiving $565,206 (an estimate) in lottery proceeds. The county provided $1.5 million to the school system’s capital-projects budget for the current fiscal year.

Commissioner Hood Richardson was bothered that Spruill’s proposed budget did not include that $565,206 with the $937,860 proposed for the school system’s capital-projects budget.

“The schools would say ‘Keep the lottery money and give us the $1.5 million. That way we don’t have to worry about drawing down. We’ll still approve the capital budget jointly. If the lottery money out performs, then we’ll worry about that together later. That way we know what we are getting. We don’t have to worry about performance of the lottery.’ That’s what the schools would say. I see it differently than that, but I won’t go in to all the reasons why,” Spruill said.

Commissioners Richardson and Al Klemm expressed concern with not including the $565,206 with the $937,860 in the proposed budget.

“What it does is it makes our budget appear to be less than it actually is, because the money’s moved.” Klemm said. “In other words, we normally have the whole $1.5 million included in our budget. But by moving it out and having it ($565,206) stand off by itself, it lowers our budget number.”

Richardson contended the $565,206 should have been added to the $937,860.

“The county owns that money as much as the school board does,” Richardson said. “It’s revenue that by law passes through the county on the way to the school board. It’s our revenue. Even though it’s a designated use, it’s still our revenue.”

Spruill explained his decision to not include the $565,206 with the $937,860, but that did now sway Richardson.

“I’m trying to get it in the column where it belongs,” Richardson said.

Richardson made a motion to add the $565,206 to the revenue column in the county’s proposed budget, saying doing so would give the county an opportunity to “adjust the capital budget for the schools should we so desire.”

The motion failed. Commissioners Richardson, Deatherage and Cayton voted for it, but Commissioners Klemm, Jerry Langley, Ed Booth and Jay McRoy voted against it.

Under questioning by the commissioners, Phipps said reductions in the school system’s funding from the county would have an adverse effect. Without knowing specifically how much the county may cut the school system’s funding, Phipps said, it’s difficult to know how the school system would respond.

Phipps mentioned another uncertainty regarding the school system’s budget.

“We don’t know what the state’s going to do, either,” said Phipps, a reference to ongoing state budget deliberations in the N.C. General Assembly.

Langley, commission chairman, asked Phipps what would happen if the $937,860 proposed for capital projects was cut by $500,000.

Phipps said reducing funding for capital projects would mean some needed capital projects would be deferred until funding was available.

Langley asked Phipps what would happen if $500,000 were cut from the proposed $12,320,150 for operating costs.

“I know that is going to impact people. I realize that. The question I want to know (the answer to) is how many people are we impacting?” Langley asked.

“My honest answer is … one it’s going to depend on what the state funding is to give you the true answer to that. The first thing we are going to do is look at programs and services and cut as much there as we can, before we ever get to the point of touching personnel,” Phipps said. “I don’t have a number to tell you where that cut point would be.”

Richardson said the commissioners should determine how much funding the county will give the school system. Then, the school system would be in a better position to react to the funding amount, informing the commissioners how that amount would affect the school system.

“Mr. Chairman … we do not want to put this board in a negotiating position with the school board on some of these issues. When we do that, you’re going back to lawsuit city.”

Richardson was referring to the school board taking the county to court several years ago to seek more county dollars for the school system’s budget.

“We have to come up with a number. We put our number on it. If they have strong objections, I think they come up right away and say, ‘We have strong objections and here’s why.’ And we do our back and forth within the next few weeks. I have a problem with this county board of commissioners setting itself up to negotiate,” Richardson said.

At one point during the meeting, school-board chairman Robert Belcher said it was unfair to ask Phipps to provide specific answers to the what-if scenarios because those answers should come from the school board.

“I think the board is willing to consider anything you put on the table, but it has to be the board that decides that. Dr. Phipps can’t decide that. I don’t want him to put himself in a bind by telling you he’ll do it, and then the board come back on him and say, ‘You shouldn’t have said that,’” Belcher said.