Yet another brilliant idea to help fund Guilford County Schools isn’t working out as planned:
School and High Point city officials will wrap up discussions tonight on the red-light camera settlement.
The city owes the Guilford County Board of Education $1.48 million to meet the terms of the lawsuit. In late June, the N.C. Supreme Court denied the city’s request to review a lower court’s ruling that the school system receive 90 percent of fines paid by motorists caught running red lights by cameras at 10 city intersections between 2001 and March 2005.
City officials have suggested they get credit toward the amount they owe by deducting costs – a savings of more than $400,000 – from two road widening projects that would benefit Southwest High and Oak View Elementary schools.
Another $330,000 remains in High Point’s red-light camera fund, which would leave $751,563 for the city to pay to the school system. City officials have been supportive of using the costs for the road widening projects as credit toward the settlement amount, one leader calling it an “acceptable compromise.”
You have to wonder if the money-shuffling gimmicks will ever cease. Taxpayers sure hope so, and not just the ones pushing a pink light.
