JACKSON – Proceeds from the sale of the old Jackson-Eastside School will be used, in part, to upgrade safety and install security features at other Northampton County public schools.

The property, located on NC 305 just east of Jackson, was sold in March of last year to End Time Empowerment and Deliverance Ministry, a non-profit entity based in Seaboard and founded in 2012. The sale price was $48,000.

At a joint meeting between the Northampton Board of Education and Board of Commissioners last month, Northampton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Monica Smith-Woofter advised county officials that all of the required actions associated with selling the county-owned property are now complete. She also made the Commissioners aware that the school system was looking to be reimbursed $25,000 to cover out-of-pocket expenses incurred due to the sale of the Eastside property.

In a follow-up letter to the Commissioners from Smith-Woofter dated March 23, she cited General State Statutes that allow a public school system to use the proceeds from the sale of a school property to cover capital outlay projects.

But first, Smith-Woofter sought to ensure the school system’s current expense fund was reimbursed for the money used from those coffers for the costs associated with the sale of Eastside.

“To date, we have amassed a significant amount of cost and would like to recover some of the expenses associated with this sale that were paid from our current expense budget,” Smith-Woofter said in the letter.

She added that the $25,000 transfer back into the school system’s current expense fund would help to cover the costs of advertising, attorney fees, general maintenance on the building and realtor fees.

“Additionally, by allowing us to transfer these funds into current expense, we will have this year’s local matching requirement for a grant we received,” Smith-Woofter added in her letter to the Commissioners.

She said the remainder of the funds generated by the sale of Eastside will subsidize a safety/security project that will add panic alarms and door lock systems at all public schools in the county.

At their April 6 meeting, the Northampton County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the $25,000 transfer of funds as requested by Smith-Woofter.