ELIZABETHTOWN — Bladen County commissioners took a shot at passing the 2022-23 fiscal year budget on Monday, but got mired in a discussion over how to designate more than $400,000 for Bladen County Schools.

According to the proposed fiscal year budget, the county has appropriated $7,514,673 to Bladen County Schools, which represents a 10% increase over the current-year budget.

A portion of that amount is earmarked for the local supplement for teachers — but County Commissioner Charles Ray Peterson wants that earmarked money redirected to help pay for six additional school resource officers, which would place one SRO in each of the school district’s 12 schools.

“I simply don’t have confidence the school board will do it,” he said. “My vote will go to protecting the kids, and we need to do it tonight.”

Peterson then put that into a motion, which would be to approve the 2022-23 budget with the exception of moving the monies for teacher supplements to paying for six additional SROs.

That didn’t set well with some others on the board.

“I understand and agree with what Mr. Peterson is saying — we need those SROs,” said County Chairman Ray Britt. “But we are the lowest county with teacher supplements, and we need to show more support for our teachers.

“We also need to make a vote on the budget,” he added.

Commissioner Ophelia Munn-Goins stated that, in her talks with Sheriff Jim McVicker, it was said there is a challenge with getting enough deputies placed into the SRO role already. Of the six current SROs in Bladen County, only four of the positions are filled.

“If the sheriff can’t fill the positions we have now, how can he fill six more?” she asked. “I suppose we can contract out for them, but we haven’t really wanted to do that in the past.”

As the discussion went on, bordering on heated at times, Commissioner Michael Cogdell tried to move the board toward a vote.

“We just need to say yea or nay on appropriating the money for SROs,” he said. “Do we want the kids and teachers safe or not?”

Jason Atkinson, superintendent of the school district, told the board that funding the current six SRO positions totaled about $360,000.

Following more discussion that failed to move in any direction, Peterson, whose original motion never received a second, decided to table any vote on the proposed budget. But even that motion brought a split board — though it did pass by a 5-4 vote, with Commissioners Britt, Cogdell, Munn-Goins and Arthur Bullock were the no votes.

It was decided that the next discussion on the proposed budget — as well as any additional thoughts on the SRO issue — would take place on Monday at 6:30 p.m.

W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-862-4163 or [email protected].