Look for more questions today from Wake County Commissioners on the school system's $30 million fund balance.

During today's meeting, school staff will present the district's latest comprehensive annual financial report. That's the document that shows that the school system's undesignated fund balance, aka rainy-day fund, has grown faster than expected.

At the last joint meeting, Commissioner Paul Coble warned the school board against changing policy to be able to keep more of the fund balance without turning the excess to the county.

You might have been wondering whose meeting you were attending on Tuesday as school issues came up at the meetings of the Wake County school board and county commissioners.

As noted in today's article, commissioners voiced their concerns about the school system proposal's to add unarmed private security officers to every elementary school. As noted in today's article by Josh Shaffer, school board members reacted to the school issues that the commissioners were voting on as part of their 2013 State Legislative Agenda.

All this suggests a rocky road ahead as they work together on the bond issue and school funding.

The Wake County school board is making another effort to purchase the former YWCA building near downtown Raleigh.

The school board voted 4-2 tonight to pay $825,000 to purchase two of the three parcels that the YWCA owns on East Hargett Street. Joe Desormeaux, the assistant superintendent for facilities, said the two parcels are big enough to house a school.

The school board had agreed to pay $1 million to purchase all three parcels. But county commissioners rejected the deal Jan. 7 over concerns about the title for one of the parcels.

The Wake County school board will look at how to improve school security and school transportation today and also take another crack at buying the former YWCA building in Raleigh.

During the board work session, school security staff will present an update on the review that was launched following last month's Connecticut school shooting. One byproduct is today's vote on hiring an unarmed security guard for every elementary school.

Also during the work session, the board will hear the results of the transportation review that was launched because of the bus problems at the start of the school year. Transportation staff will make recommendations on changes.

At the end of the regular meeting, the board will take another vote on buying the YWCA building. County commissioners rejected a revised deal earlier this month but said the school board could try again.

The purchase of the former YWCA building near downtown Raleigh for a future Wake County school is now dead.

The Wake County Board of Commissioners had agreed Nov. 19 to purchase the property, but title problems were later discovered with one of the three tracts in the deal. The school system asked commissioners to approve today this amended deall allowing it to split up the purchase into two parts.

But in a departure from the 4-3 vote in November, the commissioners unanimously voted today for Commissioner Tony Gurley's motion to reject the new request and to declare the prior approval dead.

It may be a tough sell for the Wake County school system to get county commissioners to approve funding for the single-sex leadership academies and the purchase of the former YWCA building.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, Republican commissioners wanted more details before approving use of $1.657 million to renovate the former Thompson School as the site of the Wake Young Men’s Leadership Academy. There were also questions about using $2.9 million to renovate buildings at the Gov. Morehead School for use by the Young Women’s Leadership Academy.

But there seemed to be an especially heavy dose of skepticism about spending $1.1 million to buy the former YWCA building on Hargett Street.

The Wake County school board voted tonight to offer to purchase land for a new middle school in northeast Raleigh.

The board is offering $2,896,000 to buy this 29.864-acre parcel on Louisburg Road near Perry Creek Road. The seller is 5401 North LLC, which is aiming to build 2,200 homes in its town center community.

The school is in the M-13 target area that Wake has been searching in. Funding for the land purchase would come from the 2006 bond issue with construction costs likely coming from a future bond issue.

The deal is still subject to approval from the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta issued a call for help in this fall's elections during last Thursday's Northern Wake Republican Club meeting.

Most of Margiotta's speech focused on the actions initiated by the board since December 2009. But Margiotta closed his speech by pointing to the stakes for this fall's school board elections when he will be running for re-election while also hoping to pick up at least one of the Democratic seats.

"I think it's important that we recognize that the campaign from those that will be out there again will be an attempt to return to the old practices of moving kids around for the sake of socioeconomic diversity," Margiotta said. "And we can not go back to those programs. It's important that we elect candidates that are committed and will stay with their commitments and remain committed and follow through with the programs we've been able to initiate."

Wake County Commissioners are scheduled to vote today on taking over the acquisition of new school sites from the school board.

Based on this handout, it would still be up to the school system to identify target rings for where to look for new school sites. But it would be the county that would take the lead in finding site, in consultation with school staff.

If a potential site is found outside the target rings, it would be brought to the school system promptly for approval before any further county staff action is taken.

The Wake County school system may be paying again for its decision to pack Forest Pines Drive Elementary and North Forest Pines Elementary on the same campus.

At the recommendation of staff, the school board took the unusual step on Tuesday of implementing an enrollment cap during the middle of a school year. The board's action to put a cap on Forest Pines will allow Growth Management to turn away new students this school year from the school's base and send them to either Wakefield or Rolesville elementary schools.

It's the third time that Forest Pines has been capped since the 2008-09 school year.