ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — The Alamance Burlington School System received a lifeline Monday morning allowing them to delay proposed layoffs amid a budget crisis.
The county voted to allocate $250,000 from their general funds to ABSS to stall their potential reduction in force.
The school system said the proposed reduction in force would impact 60 employees. ABSS spokesperson, Les Atkins explained the majority of the impacted positions were supported by ESSER funds. ESSER funding is COVID-19 relief money that was designated to school systems on behalf of the government.
Atkins said the school system is relieved to receive these funds from the county and is hopeful it will keep them from laying off dozens of employees at least until the end of this school year.
"This will really help us and buy us some time, if you will, between now and the end of the year to really take a hard look at our finances even more. I mean we already know what kind of financial situation we're in. This is years of under-investment at the state level and the local level. ABSS, I've said this many times, we don't have a taxing authority. So, we're at the mercy of our county leaders, state leaders, and even the federal government in some instances," said Atkins.
During Monday morning's county commissioner meeting, WFMY News 2 also learned engineers are assessing all county buildings to make sure they're in stable condition.
The engineers assessed HVAC systems and roof conditions at several county buildings. They identified 21 schools with HVAC concerns and 21 schools with roof concerns. The majority of the schools are on both lists.
Among the various schools, Alamance County jail was listed for roof repairs.
The county's next step is figuring out how to fund these projects.
"The good news is all of our schools are structurally sound and safe. There's nothing to worry about, but they like all over buildings have needs and our priority is keeping the water out, making sure we don't have a repeat of some of the mold issues that we ran into this past year. So, we need to prioritize this work and immediately start to secure our buildings, making sure the roofs are not letting in water, making sure the HVAC is doing their job, cleaning the water out of the air," said Assistant County Manager, Brian Baker.
On Thursday, the school board, county commissioners, and state leaders will meet.
The school system said they're hopeful that during this meeting stakeholders will be able to come up with solutions to their budget crisis.