Moore County Schools [MCS] Superintendent, Dr. Susan Purser, came to the Board of Commissioners' Tuesday, April 19 meeting requesting an additional $3.1 million in funding after “extreme measures” by the School Board to find the money without asking the County for additional help.

Overall, the MCS has had to scramble to deal with a projected $12.1 million revenue to expense gap in its Fiscal Year 2011-2012 budget after losing $5.2 million in federal stimulus funding and facing a combination of revenue cuts and pass-through expenses from the state that total $6.9 million.

Dr. Purser said she and her staff have, “dug painfully deep,” to find $5 million in reductions: eliminating approximately 100 positions, closing one school, dropping a range of programs, and retiring twenty school buses.

Since 2008, MCS has lost some fifty positions -- something that School Board Chair Laura Lang said is causing a “domino effect.” If jobs are cut at central office. Lang told the Commissioners, it puts more work on the teacher’s plate.

To meet the budget challenge, the School Board plans to dip into their fund balance for an additional $4 million, closing $9 million of the $12.1 million funding gap. Using half of the $8 million fund balance in the coming year makes some Board members nervous, Lang told the Commissioners, noting that the fund balance will have to be replenished from funds that don’t exist.

After listening to feedback from the community and engaging in spirited debate, the Buoy and Boating Rules Revision Committee decided to withdraw its recommendation for rules changes that would have eliminated a transition zone between the No Wake Zone and the Ski Area, Director Adam Wimberly reported during the Tuesday, April 12, Seven Lakes West Landowners Association [SLWLA] Board Work Session.

A motion to discard the rules revisions already provisionally accepted by the previous Board was approved unanimously by the new slate of Directors, meeting in their first formal Work Session since the March Annual Meeting elections.

At this point only the buoys will be repositioned on the Lake; and, as they have done in the past, the Lake and Dam Committee will continue to be responsible for moving the buoys as they see fit. President Mick Herdrich said those in the community who came to the Board in a “professional manner” were very effective in pleading their case.

Speaking during the member comment period Jim Ballew said “a big problem of people complaining or misunderstanding” the proposed Lake Auman rules changes was because they didn’t have access to accurate information. Secretary Jane Sessler assured Ballew that the information had been readily available for months.

This year, like last year, when Westside residents pick up their boat tickets, they will have to read and sign off on the Lake Auman rules and regulations.

With a projected cuts in state and local funding for next year now reaching $12.1 million dollars, the Moore County Board of Education on Monday night, April 11, decided to dig deeper into its fund balance, while asking the Board of Commissioners for $3.1 million in additional local funding.

If approved, county taxpayers’ contribution to the $90.2 million budget proposed for Fiscal Year 2011-2012 would jump from $26.1 million to $29.2 million.

Funding for Moore County Schools [MCS] has been a moving target as information continues to filter down from Raleigh. State government provides the lion’s share of MCS funding.

State budget cutters, facing their own revenue shortfalls, have continued to whittle away at funding for local school systems, including Moore County’s. A FY 2011-2012 Budget that anticipated a $8.2 million revenue shortfall when first presented to the Board of Education a few weeks ago now includes a $12.1 shortfall, including the loss of $5.2 million in federal stimulus funding; a $5.4 million cut in state funding; and approximately $1.5 million in additional new “pass through” costs from the state.

Using broad brush strokes, the newly seated Seven Lakes Landowners Association [SLLA] Board of Directors sketched out a plan to improve communication with residents during their Monday, April 11 Work Session.

Under development is a new monthly town hall-style gathering — in addition to the regularly scheduled two standard meetings — that will feature a set agenda, but reserve ample time specifically for public comment and discussion. In addition, the Board approved a return to an evening schedule for Work Sessions, tentatively planned for 7:00 pm on the Monday night ten days prior to the Open Meeting. These sessions will also include expanded opportunities for interaction from non-Board members.

“We have huge things that we are going to be dealing with," SLLA President Bob Darr said. "Many of those items will need input from and backing from the community. If we intend to move forward, we have to establish a new system and a set of tools to do that job.”

Public address during Open Meetings will continue using a set of standards gleaned from county-level meetings that restricts speakers to three minutes at the podium.

But taking a much different tack for input at Work Sessions, the Board tossed aside a policy that required residents to sign up three days in advance to address the Board. Instead, those wishing to speak or ask a question may simply raise their hand during Board discussion and wait to be recognized — though Darr cautioned that such input should be "on subject" and appropriate.

In addition, he encouraged his fellow Board members to be more open in their responses to such input, either by defending or supporting their actions and decisions.

Looking beyond face-to-face interaction, the Board also agreed that additional written information should be available. One suggestion that seemed to gain traction was a community newsletter that could be printed alongside the Interlake or downloaded from email alerts.

“It’s important, and I want the community to know that we are hearing their concerns and we are going to respond,” Darr said.

The Seven Lakes Aeromodelers can, for now, continue to fly their remote-controlled planes on a tract of land near West End on NC Highway 73, Planning Director Joey Raczkowski told The Times after the Tuesday, April 7 meeting of the Moore County Planning Board.

But the Planning Department will make another stab at defining "outdoor recreation" in the Zoning Ordinance, in order to ensure recreational activities are appropriate to the zoning district in which they occur.

Planners discovered they needed a definition for “outdoor recreation” when property owners Andy and Elizabeth Blackwell of Raleigh, who own a ten-acre lot zoned Residential Agricultural RA-5 on Highway 73 near its intersection with Beulah Hill Church Road, filed a complaint about the noise level the Seven Lakes Aeromodelers Club was producing on an adjacent sixty-acre tract they lease and use to fly their radio-controlled model airplanes.

The Club’s President, Bill Sherman, represented the organization at the hearing and said they have not received noise complaints from any other neighbors. The Club also questioned if noise truly is the issue, since the Blackwells do not live on the undeveloped ten-acre tract they own.