Lost funding tops $12 million
By Steve Herring
Published in News on May 29, 2016 1:45 AM
Nearly $12.5 million that would have gone to Wayne County Public Schools has been lost in recent years as a result of the General Assembly's decision to eliminate average daily membership (ADM) funding and to highjack lottery proceeds.
Wayne County's $148,292,780 budget proposal for fiscal year 2016-17 assumes that the state will not return any portion of the lottery or ADM funding it has seized over the past five to six years to balance its budget.
It also assumes that the state will not take even more lottery funding, but that remains a major concern, County Manager George Wood told Wayne County commissioners during his Tuesday morning budget presentation.
Wood said he thinks the county will be "OK" with lottery funds, but a major concern remains as to whether the General Assembly will take even more of lottery funds originally intended for school construction or debt service on that construction.
"Now in talking with our (state) representatives last week, there is some glimmer of hope that we may actually get some more lottery money," Wood said. "I think there is some talk about trying to stair step giving some of that back to us. So we will wait and see on that."
The ADM funds were 40 percent of the corporate income tax distributed to counties based upon the student average daily membership (enrollment).
The county received $1,482,631 in ADM revenues in 2007. It was taken away the following year as the recession hit and has yet to be restored, Wood said.
There is "virtually no hope" it will ever be restored, he said.
As the economic downtown continued, the General Assembly reduced lottery funds from 40 percent to 22 percent in 2011.
Wayne County received $2,634,979 in lottery funds in 2010 compared to $1,575,821 in 2011.
"If you take that and the ADM together, the loss to Wayne County for the construction and renovation of its schools has been $2,541,789 annually since fiscal year 2011," Wood said. "So if you think of it that way, in five years, that is about $12.5 million that we have lost that would have gone to school construction."
"That is almost a school," Chairman Joe Daughtery said.
"In a decade it is $25 million," Wood said.
The budget is open for public inspection at the county clerk's office on the fourth floor of the Wayne County Courthouse Annex.
Commissioners will hold a public hearing at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 7.
Two work sessions are planned as well. The first at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, June 14, will focus on internal county departments. The second, at 9 a.m. Wednesday, June 15, will look at funding for outside agencies.
The budget could be adopted on either June 21 or June 30.