This week’s Haywood County Commission meeting featured over a dozen speakers decrying the board’s decision to not grant the full funding requested by school officials ahead of the budget vote.
The meeting began with County Manager Bryant Morehead presenting the budget, as he’d done during an earlier meeting. The budget looked almost the exact same as the prior presentation with one exception, an additional $1 million fund balance appropriation to bolster school funding, leaving the county $700,000 short of meeting the $3 million funding increase request.
When the preliminary budget was released to the public in March, it was clear that due to a slow, now dormant, federal response to Hurricane Helene, the county will have to continue to shoulder an increasing financial burden to maintain continuity of services and keep capital improvement projects on track…