County Commission members said Wednesday they came away from a joint session with the school board on Tuesday night feeling that board members were rude, were sitting on a big fund balance, and lacked planning.
Commissioner Greg Beck said, "I was met with hostility, and some of the board members wouldn't speak to me. I'm not insulted, but it brings you almost to the cussing stage."
He said, "It's crazy that they won't create right relationships with the funders."
Commissioner Beck said, "It's wacko out there. And these are the people in charge of the education of our children."
He said lists given the commissioners on school buildings and priorities appeared to be outdated. He said, "What is going on with them?"
Commissioner Joe Graham said when he tried to make a point at the meeting at county school headquarters "I would be drowned out by two or three school board members."
He said he was disturbed to find talk of sewer gases being inside one school for 20 years and rodents at another school.
Commissioner Graham said, "Rodents is about a $300 a month problem. Fixing sewer gases might be $200,000." But he said it appears to him the schools "are sitting on $39 million."
He said the county school fund balance is about $59 million, though only about $12 million is mandated. He said, pushing the total up to $20 million to be conservative, still leaves some $39 million that could be used for items like the sewer gas and rodents.
Commissioner Sabrena Smedley, who helped set up the meeting, said she agreed with Commissioner Warren Mackey that it appeared that at the schools there is "a lot of reacting and not a lot of planning."
She said some of the school fund balance could be used to take care of all the stadium needs of about $900,000 "tomorrow."
Commissioner Smedley noted that the schools for the upcoming fiscal year will be getting $10.2 million more from the state BEP and several million more from county growth.
Chairman Chester Bankston said of the school board members, "We can't tell them how to spend a dime, though sometimes I wish we could." He said, "There are four of them up for re-election. That would be one good way to fix some of the problems."
Commissioner Beck said he was "shocked" at a list of over $206 million in deferred school maintenance, yet a number of new schools had been built. He said, "I don't even know when they are ever going to start on that list. And they sounded like a number of the schools are falling down.
"At my house, I don't buy new things until I fix what is falling down."
He said one list had $236,000 for "a band aid approach at the current Howard stadium." He said that field is no longer usable because it is swamped with sewage during times of flooding. He said there was an agreement when there was a land swap involving the county schools, the city and the Housing Authority that Howard would get a new stadium at the former Poss Homes site.
He said, "It appears they are reneging on that promise."