Another week and millions more dollars in the hole. Welcome to another week in the life of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System. Local media reports are saying that the WS/FCS System is now facing a budget shortfall in the neighborhood of 42 million dollars. It has also been reported that the WS/FCS System did not pay for the costs associated with School Resource Officers that were provided by the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office and that the costs had to be covered by Forsyth County. The WS/FCS System has been mismanaged financially for some time now and the fruit of this mismanagement has been playing out since March. Since taking the majority on the School Board, Democrats have been on the wrong side of a variety of issues, whether it be the School System's response to COVID, the potential elimination of the Choice Plan, the proposed "Code of Conduct" and a variety of other issues affecting the WS/FCS System. Now we have this financial disaster.

Don't let the Democrats gaslight you; this is an issue of gross Democrat mismanagement, not an issue of Republican County Commissioners and Republicans in Raleigh inadequately funding education. Our local School System never faced such issues when it was Republican controlled and was being led by School Board members such as Buddy Collins, Dale Folwell, Donny Lambeth, Jennie Metcalf, and other high quality Republican School Board members in the past.

I would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude for two of our current Republican School Board members, Robert Barr and Susan Miller, for speaking out at this past week's Board of Education meeting and calling for accountability and consequences. Thank you for being a voice for students, parents, teachers, and the taxpayers, who will ultimately pay the price for this financial mess. Also, thank you to our Republican County Commissioners who have been showing a desire to hold the WS/FCS System leadership accountable for their overspending. This is a welcome development, and I urge you to email all of your local Republican School Board members and County Commissioners and encourage them to fight for accountability and fiscally responsible solutions to the mess that WS/FCS finds itself in.

Tim Flinchum

Chairman, Forsyth County Republican Party [email protected]