Well, they've got into a legal pissing match, it would appear.
(link...)

This has been going on for some time. The costs of the wondrous school they built a year or so ago almost bankrupted the county last year, if you remember. They came within a day of closing schools then. They ran out of money. Of course, another side of the coin is that Cumberland County enjoys one of the lowest tax rates around, and a few cents might not hurt their rich retired taxpayers. Don't know about their poor rural taxpayers, though.

Cumberland County went through the exquisite experience of having to build a justice center/jail to the spec the feds gave 'em after they had refused to deal with the specter of knowing their jail was legally inadequate and had been for some time. That was a serious financial blow. Now, a few short years after they had to deal with that, the building of the model school-to-end-all-schools has cost 'em another huge wallop in the pocketbook. And the County Commission doesn't want to raise taxes. The Director of Schools says she's not gonna open schools even with a budget "continuing resolution" from the County Commission, and the battle royale is ON.

This will be an interesting, and perhaps informative, situation to watch as it develops.

RB