Gates County commissioners press schools for details after unexpected $5.8 million budget request

Gates County commissioners spent a large portion of their May meeting discussing a newly filed budget proposal from Gates County Schools that requests $5,833,000 in county funding for the 2025–26 school year, a change commissioners characterized as abrupt and far larger than recent requests.

The commissioners said the school board’s current funding level for the past three years was $2,953,000, making the school board’s submitted increase roughly $2,880,000. Chair Emily Truman, who opened the discussion, said the board intends to seek a revenue-neutral budget and will not accept “frivolous and unnecessary increases.”

Why it matters: County commissioners appropriate local tax dollars that fund current expenses for the district. A multi-million-dollar increase in requested county support would require either a substantial tax-rate increase, cuts elsewhere in county spending, or both. Commissioners repeatedly urged a face-to-face meeting to reconcile the figures before any final appropriation.

Commissioners described the sequence of events leading to the dispute. The county invited the school board to a joint meeting on April 16 to begin budget talks; the school board declined because it had not yet approved its budget. The school board later approved a $5,833,000 request at a May 13 meeting, on short notice to the commissioners. Several commissioners said the compressed timeline and the size of the request impeded collaboration.

"The Board of Education's budget as proposed is startling," Chair Emily Truman said. "We will strive for a revenue‑neutral budget and will not be taking into consideration frivolous and unnecessary increases." Commissioner Dave Forsyth described the filing as a "giant chunk of paper" that he said lacked evidence of cost cutting or long-term facility plans.

County Manager Scott Sauer provided fiscal context and calculations to the board. Sauer said the county’s target revenue‑neutral tax rate, based on the current revaluation estimates and statutory calculations, is about 0.6558 (roughly 66 cents). He told commissioners that, if the county funded every departmental request on file, the tax rate would move toward $1.00 — an increase he said would be roughly 34 cents above the target — and that the school request alone accounted for a large share of that gap.

Sauer also noted that a penny of tax rate under the new valuation projects to generate about $130,000 in revenue, and he described the revaluation’s uneven impact on individual homeowners: some property values rose markedly while their tax bills would not rise by the same percentage under a revenue‑neutral adjustment.

Discussion and next steps: Commissioners agreed to hold a rescheduled joint meeting with the Gates County Board of Education at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 28, to discuss the proposal directly with school officials. Several commissioners emphasized the need for the superintendent and school leaders to present proposed cost‑cutting or efficiency measures and to take "ownership" of long‑term plans such as potential consolidation of underused classrooms.

Commissioner Jonathan Craddock and Commissioner Nathan Berryman said they support collaboration but criticized the timing and scale of the submission. Commissioner Brian Rountree called for restraint and warned against divisive public discussion before the joint meeting.

Ending: The board did not take a final appropriation vote at the meeting. Commissioners said they will continue the conversation at the May 28 joint meeting and expect a budget the public can review in advance of required public hearings.