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Dare County Board of Education has new leadership.

In a split vote held during the first regular meeting in December, David Twiddy was elected chairman of the board. He was nominated by Mary Ellon Ballance.

Ron Payne was nominated by Barry Wickre.

On the vote, four board members, namely Ballance, Twiddy, Susan Bothwell and Carl Woody, voted for Twiddy, who was declared the new chairman.

Woody was nominated for vice chairman by Bothwell. No one else was nominated and Woody garnered all the votes.

After a brief recess while members switched chairs, the agenda at the Dec. 11, 2023 meeting was amended to have a report on the 2023 audit after public comment.

Paul Carson, with Anderson, Smith and Wike PLLC, delivered the audit report for the year ending June 30, 2023.

Carson said the firm’s opinion letter states that the audit was a “clean, unmodified report.” That means, said Carson,s that the information presented is reliable and free of any misstatements.

The school board ended last year with a general fund balance of $1,981,528, a decrease of $3 million.

In terms of compliance testing, the auditor said that the areas checked also received a clean, unmodified report.

The detailed audit has been submitted to the Local Government Commission. When the commission has approved the audit, the audit document will be released to the public and posted on the school system’s website, daretolearn.org.

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