Commissioner questions recent payment to Alamance‑Burlington schools, cites Employment Cost Index discrepancy

A commissioner at the Aug. 4 Alamance County meeting warned the board that a recently adopted payment to the Alamance‑Burlington School System (ABSS) may have been calculated using an Employment Cost Index (ECI) estimate higher than the recently published Bureau of Labor Statistics figure, potentially creating an overpayment that could affect future baselines.

The unnamed commissioner said the board rushed into an agreement to pay ABSS “millions more than they may or may not have been entitled to” because three parts of the funding formula were unknown at the time: projected student population, prior-year county funding and the ECI. The commissioner said the Bureau of Labor Statistics had just released a 3.6% ECI figure and that the board’s earlier calculations may have used a higher assumed rate, which could mean the county has already overpaid by “nearly a quarter of a million dollars” and that an inflated baseline could compound into higher payments in future years.

County legal staff and administration responded that the calculation used the numbers available at the time and that a 3.8% figure had been used in the database consulted for the board’s prior actions. The county administrator/attorney confirmed the agreement with ABSS was included in the packet that accompanied the minutes adopted at the prior meeting and said the board could receive a copy of the finalized agreement; the commissioner requested a copy during the discussion.

No formal action was taken at this meeting; the exchange was recorded as commissioner comment and staff response. The issues raised are fiscal oversight and transparency questions about the methodology used to calculate the payment, and the commissioner asked staff to provide the finalized agreement and the calculations that produced the figures used to set the payment baseline.