These 2 Wake County elementary schools might have their renovations delayed. Here's why.

Renovations could be delayed at two elementary schools because Wake County school leaders say they're getting nearly $60 million less than what they want in the next few years for school construction projects.

School officials say the Wake County Board of Commissioners wants to provide $58.2 million less than what the school board requested between 2020 and 2022 to pay for building and renovating schools. School facilities staff said Wednesday that they can't guarantee that they'll finish on schedule the renovations for Fuller and Swift Creek elementary schools.

"In order to maintain our AAA bond rating — which we firmly support — it looks like we're going to have to make some adjustments to our building schedule for at least one school, if not two," school board member Bill Fletcher said in an interview after Wednesday's meeting.

The Wake County school system has a rolling $2.1 billion 7-year program for building and renovating schools.

School district staff had used an average of $330 million a year to map out projects.

School board members complained during Wednesday's facilities committee meeting that the county wants to provide an amount as low as $304 million in 2019.

"If we're going to have a seven-year plan, we've got to be able to have some confidence in what's in the seven-year plan," said school board vice chairman Jim Martin. "This is a substantial reduction to what both boards agreed to."

Wake County commissioners plan to put three bond items on the Nov. 6 ballot totaling $1.1 billion. Of that, $548 million would be for the school system.

Fletcher, chairman of the school board facilities committee, said the county seems to be blaming only the school system for the 3.8-cent tax rate increase that would result from passage of all three ballot items.

"It's all attributed to Wake County (school system), the way the slides are written," Fletcher said during the meeting. "That seems curious. Just an editorial comment."

The complaints prompted a heated response from County Commissioner John Burns.

"They are receiving what was agreed upon," Burns tweeted Wednesday. "This is not accurate. If they want to endanger this bond and put the entire construction program at risk, this is a fine way to do it."

After the meeting, Fletcher said that the school board would be good partners with the county in trying to get the school bond passed.

Commissioners still plan to provide the school board with all the money they've requested. But commissioners want to give more of the money in the later years of the seven-year plan.

Fuller Elementary's renovation is supposed to be completed by 2021, with students temporarily being relocated to the former Garner High School ninth-grade center while their campus is renovated.

Wake would then relocate Swift Creek's students and staff to the Garner High ninth-grade center while their campus is rebuilt, with completion in 2022.

Joe Desormeaux, assistant superintendent for facilities, said staff will try to look for savings in other projects to keep both schools on schedule.

This story was originally published June 27, 2018 at 6:32 PM.