It’s that time of year once again. Yes, March Madness has led to April Angst and folks are on the edge of their seats. Statewide, discussions at breakfast and barbershops are predicting what will happen, and newspapers are delighting in the frenzy. Not to mislead you, but school boards and county commissioners are preparing their upcoming budgets. Ultimately they will square off during May Mayhem when both boards will have to start settling their monetary differences or end up in court.

To begin, counties are facing some of the steepest budget hills they’ve ever faced. Battered and weary, they’re trying to keep taxes at current levels, especially during an election cycle, while still recovering from tough times. They will do this in time to stamp their budgets complete by June 30. But school boards have had their share of wounds as well. Gov. Mike Easley wants to decrease class size, and the federal government is pushing “No Child Left Behind” mandates. But both programs are drastically short of the funds necessary to pay for the premise. As such, school boards usually look down the ladder, not up, when addressing their budget shortfalls. Thus they won’t be calling Washington or Raleigh, but will instead plead their cases with local newspapers and leave the burden of budget shortfall at the county office.

Local school systems are not known to be miserly with respect to their expenditures. Why should they, they’re a monopoly. But these are tough times, and school boards should be looking at any possible way to save money. Sadly, early indications are that school board requests will far exceed any possible growth in student population or inflation.

Moore county schools want a 10.6 percent increase plus $2.7 million for “technology” funding. This would mean a 13.5 percent increase in property taxes. Wake, Transylvania, and Pitt County school boards are requesting more than 7 percent over last year, excluding capital. Interestingly, Transylvania also wants a 73 percent increase in its capital expense. Wayne County wants 5 percent more than last year, but also wants about $100 million in bond money. Similar requests are coming in across the state.

Are we seeing this kind of growth in businesses? No. Are we seeing this kind of annual population growth? No, especially not statewide.

In each example we’re simply at the discussion stage. Many school boards are still preparing their requests, but there is no reason to think they will be asking for less. They never do.

Scotland County is also interesting, as it has a 1963 state law that forced the county to fund students at the per-pupil statewide average. In 2002-03 that mandate would have required $9 million go to the schools. This was somewhat unfathomable, considering the county has only 36,000 people. So the county was able to get the legislature to amend its mandate. The brilliant result is that the county commissioners must fund the school board for current expenses in line with “low wealth” counties. This is complicated, but the net result is that their 04-05 budgets will force them to give $9 million to the schools. Is that good? Their current unemployment figures are higher than 12l percent, one of the highest in the state. Property taxes are also high and will probably exceed 1 percent this year. This is one of the more bizarre examples of state micromanagement.

Continued budget request that exceed both population and inflation will ultimately lead to a fiscal collapse not unlike that which Scotland County might face. This is not an attempt to be cynical, but I do believe that we are dealing with an unsustainable funding system.

In a recent survey conducted by the Center for Local Innovation, 22 percent of business leaders thought they were getting a “good” rate of return for the money spent on K-12 education. To be clear, the survey doesn’t show that education is failing, but it does illustrate displeasure with the dramatic increase in costs for education and the marginal rate of improvement.

If we continue down this path, county tax rates will inevitably increase and cause more economic distress in rural North Carolina. There is always the hope that some legislative leader will have the courage to accept the accountability for the system the General Assembly has created. But then again, accountability is an elusive beast up here. Besides, I think most of them are on the way to a ribbon cutting or a free meal at the Department of Public Instruction.

Chad Adams is director of the Center for Local Innovation.