Alston Haunts Old Stomping Grounds

The Guilford County commissioners have so much on their plates right now that if they were at an all you can eat buffet they would get kicked out for piling it on too high.

That was evident at the Board of Commissioners' Thursday, Jan. 10 retreat, when the board began dealing with the current issues the county is facing.

Those include the coming retirement of Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox and five other county department heads, a projected $41 million shortfall in the next county budget, a potential lawsuit against the Board of Commissioners by Board of Elections Director George Gilbert, growing demands on Emergency Services, a study of equity pay issues for all county employees in the wake of controversial equity-based raises awarded to county directors, the Jan. 1 takeover of the county's park operations and maintenance, and much much more.

After a three-hour morning closed session to look at resumes from applicants for the county manager position, the board came back into open session in the Blue Room on the first floor of the Old Guilford County Court House and began to address other concerns.

One issue that dominated the political discussion in the county in late 2012, and also is clearly a major topic in 2013, is the fairness of employee pay in county government.

Guilford County Assistant Manager Sharisse Fuller, who's also the county's human resources director, told the board in November that her department had been conducting equity salary studies, which evaluate employee salaries for fairness by comparing them with the pay of others working for the county who have similar experience and education, and who are doing similar jobs. Many employees have gotten raises in the wake of the salary reviews.

Fuller told the board three months ago that studying the pay of all county employees would take a long time. Late last year, the board instructed Fuller to look at the cost of hiring an outside company to speed up the process and, at the retreat, Fuller said Tallahassee-based Evergreen Solutions had, by far, come in as the low bidder.

Fuller told the board that Evergreen had offered a price of $68,000 to evaluate the roughly 1,600 of 2,400 employees who hadn't been evaluated yet. She added that, after further negotiations, Evergreen had agreed to drop that price to $34,000.

Commissioner Jeff Phillips and other commissioners suggested that Evergreen not only evaluate the pay of the county's remaining 1,600 employees, but also the salaries of employees that the county's Human Resources Department had already checked.

"I think a comprehensive approach is best," Phillips said. "Then we can say the same group did it."

Phillips said he understood that analyzing all employee salaries would cost more than the agreed upon $34,000 – perhaps closer to $45,000.

Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne said it was probably a good idea to have all county employees evaluated. He said he didn't expect the study to find much difference from what county human resources employees had already found in the internal study, and he added that if, in fact, there was a "big variance" with the equity pay the county had already calculated, that was something county officials needed to know.

Through a public records request, The Rhinoceros Times has seen some of the salary reviews the county has conducted so far, and they often don't seem to make much sense. For instance, the sheriff was given a raise after his salary was compared to a dentist working for the county. The sheriff oversees hundreds of people and runs a jail, whereas a dentist works in people's mouths.

The big question isn't where the county is going to find $45,000 to do the equity study but, instead, how the county is going to pay for all of those upcoming raises in a 2013-2014 budget with a projected revenue shortfall of $41 million.

Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox, who's retiring at the end of January, gave a short presentation on the county's bleak financial situation.

"So what are some of our budget issues coming up?" Fox asked rhetorically. "Clearly debt repayment is the big one right now."

During her PowerPoint presentation, Fox said Guilford County's debt service will rise from $92 million this year to $106 million in the 2013-2014 budget. It will then continue to increase in the next two budgets before finally starting to recede.

The shell-shocked commissioners didn't seem to have any great ideas concerning where to find an extra $41 million to balance the next budget.

One big reason for all the debt is the Guilford County school system, for which county voters approved a $457 million bond referendum five years ago.

Guilford County School Superintendant Mo Green and other school officials came to the retreat and updated the commissioners on school-related matters.

The school officials kept it relatively brief and used their time before the commissioners to talk about how they had been spending the bond money from the $457 million that voters approved in May 2008, in addition to $17 million in 2009 stimulus-related bonds the school is also using for capital projects.

In their presentation, they said that, of that $457 million, the school system had completed projects totaling $271 million, including $52 million for rebuilding Eastern High School, which burned down in 2006. About $37 million was used to build a new Jamestown Middle School. Much of the bond money was spent adding tennis courts, tracks, stadiums and other athletic facilities at county schools.

School officials said that about $102 million of the bond money is in projects currently under construction – such as an autism wing at Ragsdale High School.

About $37 million in bond projects are "under design" and some of the money has yet to be spent.

A few days before the commissioners' retreat, the Guilford County Board of Education voted not to proceed with building a new airport area high school.

At the retreat, Board of Education Chairman Alan Duncan told the commissioners that the proposed high school, which had originally been on the list of bond projects, was no longer in the works.

"Acquiring land in that area has been exceedingly difficult," Duncan said.

He said the schools were now looking at expanding existing facilities to handle the growing number of students in the airport area.

On a more upbeat note, Green said that an infusion of grant money totaling $35 million will fund a new program that provides all middle school students with tablet computers.

"This is a tablet the student can take home and all course materials will be on it," Green said.

Several commissioners wanted to know if parents would have to pay anything if the tablets were lost, stolen or damaged.

Green told the board that the grant money also covered insurance for the tablets.

"We do build it in as part of the contract, at no expense to the parent," Green said.

He also said that, in pilot programs where the schools have used tablet computers, he had been pleasantly surprised by the small number of problems of that nature.

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At the retreat, Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis gave a presentation on property tax collection efforts in the wake of the countywide revaluation last year. He said notices of new property values were sent out to taxpayers in March and since then the county has received about 2,700 appeals, which amounts to 3.6 percent of the parcels on the county's books.

Chavis said that was significantly less than counties usually see after a revaluation, and he added that the Board of Equalization and Review had been meeting very often to hear the appeals.

"Obviously, in a reval year, your board of E and R stays very busy," Chavis said. "They have done a phenomenal job this year."

Chavis named each member of the Board of Equalization and Review, and he pointed out that Frank Rakestraw had been chairman of that board until a few months ago, when health problems prevented him from continuing to serve. Rakestraw, the husband of former Greensboro City Councilmember and former Guilford County Commissioner Mary Rakestraw, died last month at the age of 68.

Chavis said he expected the appeals process for the revalued property to be complete by the end of this month.

Late in the day, the commissioners briefly addressed the ongoing question of what to do about the Alamance County line. The Board of Commissioners has been discussing the line for nearly a decade now, and about five years ago it began taking action to attempt to resolve a long-standing dispute with Alamance County over what land is in which county.

About five years ago, the State of North Carolina surveyed the line and everyone now knows exactly where the line lies. However, adopting the new line will upset some residents who live on the border of the two counties, so Alamance County hasn't voted to adopt the county line that state surveyors found. Guilford County voted three years ago to adopt that line.

The Guilford County commissioners spoke briefly at the retreat with Gibsonville Mayor Lenny Williams, who's very familiar with the situation since the line divides his community, but the board took no action.

Commissioner Kay Cashion said she wanted to make sure that all the residents who live along the line continue to have access to emergency services.

Guilford County Emergency Services Director Alan Perdue said there was nothing to worry about in that regard.

"There's a responding agency for every home," Perdue told the board.

Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Linda Shaw said Guilford County representatives would meet with Alamance County officials at a future date to determine where the issue stands.

At the Jan. 10 retreat, Fuller gave a presentation of the county's strategic plan. That grand plan was begun almost five years ago to offer policy guidance to Guilford County commissioners and staff, and then, in 2008 when the economy fell apart, the plan died in its tracks. Former Commissioner Paul Gibson, who was the driving force behind the plan, acknowledged three years ago that the strategic plan was dead, but Fuller, who put a great deal of work into developing the plan, has been unable to let go.

Fuller is an intelligent woman so she must know that the plan is dead; however, each year at the retreat, for some reason that remains unclear, Fuller feels compelled to talk about it.

In her PowerPoint presentation, she explained what strategic planning is.

"Strategic planning determines where an organization is going and how it is going to get there," Fuller said.

She said the community polling process five years ago had led to firm visions for the county's future. For instance, citizens were very much in favor of "Further Community Achievement" as well as "Community Vibrance." They also favored economic growth and a "higher quality of life" over unemployment and a lower quality of life.

Fuller also said the county's citizens wanted the commissioners to work to "ensure community health and safety."

That's opposed to those counties where the citizens want fiscal collapse, fewer jobs and a more dangerous community – perhaps because residents in those counties find it more thrilling to live on the edge while unemployed, with no safety net, and with nothing to live on but their own wits. County commissioners in those counties have much easier jobs.

Former Board of Commissioners Chairman Skip Alston, who supposedly stepped down from the board last December after serving 20 years, caused quite a stir at the retreat when he showed up and stayed for nearly the entire afternoon.

County staff gave Alston handouts as though he were still a commissioner, and at times he looked as though he were going to jump in with a question or a comment.

Alston said there was a simple explanation why he came to the retreat.

"They need my knowledge," Alston joked. "They may have forgotten something."

A moment later, Alston gave a second explanation.

"I've got nothing else to do," he said.

At the meeting, Shaw recognized Alston, the former District 8 commissioner, and she said she was still mad at him for not running again.

Current District 8 Commissioner Ray Trapp, who ran uncontested for the seat after Alston decided not to run again, said he was of the opposite opinion.

"I want to thank him for not running," Trapp said.