DOBSON — Surry County received a report from the state on its status among poverty-stricken counties. While the news was positive, it does hurt state funding.
Every year the N.C. Department of Commerce puts together a ranking of the 100 counties by financial distress. Surry was in the middle of the pack at 45th worst out of 100.
A couple of years ago, Surry was ranked 34th worst, so this is an improvement of 11 spots. However, by being outside the 40 worst rankings, Surry will miss out on some additional funds.
The 40 poorest counties are given a Tier One designation. The next 40 counties are given Tier Two status. The 20 richest counties are given Tier Three status.
“The designations, which are mandated by state law, determine a variety of state funding opportunities to assist in economic development,” states a letter from the Department of Commerce presented in the agenda packets for Monday night’s meeting of the Surry County Board of Commissioners.
It isn’t just economic development, as the three school systems have brought up tier status when discussing how much funding they would get from the state and how much they would need from the county.
When a similar move occured in April 2016, Dr. Travis Reeves, Surry County Schools superintendent, told the county Board of Education that the district was losing $277,000 in government funding because Surry had risen from Tier I to Tier II. This was nearly 10% of the $2.8 million in state low-wealth funding.
Reeves told the school board that low-wealth funding has gone toward such things as salaries, instructional support, school support, school allotments, professional development, instructional supplies and computer software. Therefore the funding impacts all students at all 19 schools.
No details are available yet from the state on how this will affect this year’s school funding.
The data
In December 2018, the commissioners found out Surry County had been ranked worse by the state, which wasn’t good news for the county, but jumped it back into Tier One. The county went from outside the 40 worst at 44th to 34th.
So how did Surry improve to 45th worst?
The state said it used four factors to determine rankings: average unemployment rate, median household income, percentage of growth in population, and adjusted property tax base per capita. The population data is for a three-year period, while the others are for one year.
Only one of the four factors put Surry in the top 40: property tax base, where it sits 36th lowest in the state at $84,132 of value for every person in the county. Robeson had the worst at $53,527.
Surry had only 1% growth, which 42nd worst. Some counties had drops in population; Tyrrell had the worst with a drop of 7.65%.
In household income, Surry was 46th at $46,342. Robeson was also worst here with just $35,407.
In unemployment Surry was 65th at 5.97%. Hyde was the worst at 10.89%.
Looking at the neighboring counties, no tier change occurred for Alleghany, Stokes, Yadkin or Wilkes, either.
The closest county to have a change is Davie (south of Yadkin) which worsened from Tier Three to Tier Two (84th to 76th).
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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