Down Home’s Alamance Chapter works with community coalition and local electeds to win care over cuts in this year’s county budget process.
By Theresa Draughn, Down Home member & 2025 Organizing Fellow
For the last several weeks, working members of the community, along with the Alamance County Down Home Chapter, have been busy planning, contacting local elected officials, sharing stories, and showing up at public meetings in a fight for a fair county budget. I am now so excited to be able to announce an incredible win. The Alamance County Commissioners backed down from their initial budget proposal that included devastating cuts to crucial community programs. They have now passed a budget that includes funding for Emergency Medical Services, Public Libraries, the Family Justice Center, and the Alamance-Burlington School System (ABSS). Not only have they ensured ABSS educators receive both the local and the state supplement, but they have also ensured that staff will receive back payment for the supplement that was frozen last year.
It takes a village!
There were many factors that led to this incredible win. Despite extreme stances by some of the county commissioners, level-headed leadership and care for the people of Alamance County was able to prevail. Ultimately, we saw commissioners and school board members come together and find a way to fund essential programs.
We are especially grateful to Alamance Commissioner Vice Chair Steve Carter and Commissioners Kelly Allen and Pamela T. Thompson for their leadership and willingness to listen to their constituents. While other commissioners explored even more draconian measures in response to public outcry against the initial budget, these leaders responded to the people and worked to find real solutions.
We are also grateful to the Alamance Board of Education Chair Sandy Ellington-Graves and members Seneca Rogers and Tameka Harvey. When the first budget vote didn’t fully fund the ABSS budget request, they refused to give up. Instead, they worked with district lawyers to understand their options and pursued their right to request mediation of the budget decision made by the county commissioners. Even though they didn’t end up needing to enter the mediation, we are confident that the end result, in which the full supplement and back supplement pay was restored, would not have happened if they had not persisted.
But still.
As grateful as we are to the elected officials that worked with us, we want to be extremely clear: none of this would have happened if the people of Alamance County hadn’t shown up & shown out to make sure this budget didn’t go through. In addition to the members of the Alamance County Down Home chapter, there was incredible work done by other grassroots organizations, including Save the Alamance Libraries, Neighbor Up Southern Alamance, and the Alamance-Burlington Association of Educators (ABAE). Each of these organizations was active in raising awareness about the terrible budget proposal & in turning folks out in droves to speak out at the commissioner meetings.
After the first meeting at the June 2 budget hearing, we were able to join forces at a joint planning meeting and keep the pressure on for weeks. Folks from these organizations were active in canvassing, texting, working with the press, and preparing people to share their stories at every opportunity. This helped amplify all of our messages and let the commissioners know that all eyes were on them and that they would be held to account for their decisions.
We also know that this effort was possible because of the work that has gone before us. Tameka Harvey is a dues-paying member of Down Home NC who made the decision to run for Alamance-Burlington School Board just last year. After months of hard work by her team – and by the Alamance Chapter once they endorsed her – she became the first Black woman elected to the Alamance-Burlington Board of Education in November 2024. Seneca Rogers was also endorsed by the Alamance County Down Home Chapter in his run for the school board in 2022. Although his race wasn’t successful, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the school board in 2023 after a long campaign in which our members played a leading role. He was endorsed again for the 2024 election and was able to win his seat outright in that campaign.
The Public School Strong team in Alamance County is another incredible part of this work. They spearheaded the response to toxic mold shutdowns in ABSS last year and were part of the effort that pushed the Alamance County Commissioners to pass a tax increase to pay for facilities improvements for ABSS, including mold remediation – which laid the foundation for responding when the commissioners made other plans for those funds this year.
Once again, we are seeing the power that lives inside of Down Home NC’s core theory of change: If we build multiracial and working class power in small towns and rural communities across North Carolina, we can win improvements now and move towards a future that reflects our values.
Even in the midst of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty at the state and federal levels, we are seeing the power we have together.
Here’s to us!
