DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 1997         TAG: 9709170497

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

DATELINE: MANTEO                            LENGTH:   31 lines

WORKSHOP TO FOCUS ON SCHOOLS BUDGET DARE COMMISSIONERS, BOARD OF EDUCATION TO HAVE OPEN MEETING

Dare County Commissioners will meet with school board members at 1 p.m. today to iron out budget needs for the 1997-98 fiscal year.

The workshop, which is open to the public, will be held at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. Commissioners plan to ask school board members a number of questions about their spending. They also want answers about pending lawsuits, travel allowances and ``personnel with `open' expense accounts paid from county funds.''

The school board has been operating on an interim budget since July. In June, the county had to bail out the school board by appropriating $305,012 in emergency funds after the education system came up with cost overruns in a number of areas. The school board also dismissed its chief financial officer - but members have not said why.

In a letter Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Geneva Perry sent to school board Chairman Fletcher Willey this week, she said the workshop was scheduled ``to give the Board of Commissioners a full status report of your financial situation, an understanding of how this financial crisis has occurred, . . . your current financial condition . . . and anticipated shortfalls during this budget cycle.

``There must be a public understanding of what is being done to get the Board of Education house in order and the assurance there are no `smoke screens,' '' Perry wrote.

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