Raleigh, Dec. 18—Davidson county, whose payments to its school teachers are in arrears, will have to do its own Santa-Clausing. The state department of education has sent, or is sending, all that Davidson is due from the equalizing fund—this is a small amount, anyhow, when compared with the total—and refuses to accept the buck or any part of it. A report has reached here that the Davidson authorities have attempted to shift some of their responsibility off on this aforesaid equalizing fund, which already has burdens well-nigh unbearable.
Fact is, Davidson is close to the middle of a bad fix in its finances. It has a former official under indictment for an alleged shortage in his funds. The county board of education is charged with responsibility for paying the teachers, but requires co-operation from the board of commissioners which might not be desirable of giving it at this time.
Davidson, too, could have got into the trouble that a lot of counties have had since they began to tamper with revaluation, or the 1920 property valuation. There have been in practically all of the counties who have received their valuation shortages in the school funds which the state of North Carolina through its legislature told the counties they would be permitted to fund for just this once. Hereafter shortages are supposed to be met by the members of the boards of education.
Three-fourths of the equalizing fund will have been distributed among the counties by the end of this week. The other fourth, under the law, may not be paid over until the counties have satisfied the state department of education that they have carried out their part of the educational bargain.
From the front page of Durham Herald, N.C., Dec. 19, 1923
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