By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
The Orange County Board of Commissioners will likely hear pleas for more funding for the schools at public hearings tonight (Thursday) and Monday on the county manager’s proposed 2007-08 budget.
Last week, County Manager Laura Blackmon presented her recommended budget, which would increase the property tax rate by 3.7 cents, bringing the countywide tax rate to 94 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. For a $200,000 home, the tax would increase $74. The special district tax for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district would remain at 18.85 cents.
The commissioners have said they hope to limit this year’s tax increase to equal the amount of debt-service payment increases. The county has increased the tax rate about six cents in each of the last two years.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen has expressed deep reservations about the plan, saying the school system will see major cuts to current programs if the district does not receive more funding from the county.
Board Chair Moses Carey and Commissioner Barry Jacobs said they are particularly concerned about county residents who cannot afford a tax increase.
“We are already one of the highest-taxed counties in the country,†Jacobs said. “We keep talking about promoting affordability without addressing taxes.â€
Carey said the people he has heard from “are not people who just don’t like to pay taxes,†but people who “find it difficult to pay these taxes.â€
“A lot of them are senior citizens,†he added. “A lot of them are people who are working two jobs just to make ends meet.â€
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board has requested $54.8 million in funding, an increase of $6.8 million. According to Pedersen, about $5 million of that request would fund state-mandated salary increases, new school openings and enrollment growth throughout the district. Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools would receive $48.7 million – $33.6 million from the county and $15.1 million from the special district tax – under the recommended budget.
Pedersen said that while he understands that taxes have become a burden for some county residents, the school district will not be able to continue its current programs and services without an additional $4 million in funding. To add new programs or to expand services, the schools would need an additional $6 million, he said.
“I think the taxes are high when we consider the county, the school district and the town taxes,†Pedersen said. “I can understand why the commissioners would try to limit increases in those rates this year.â€
However, he added, “I don’t think we can simply put the brakes on tax-rate increases and expect the school district to make reductions of approximately four million dollars.â€
To fully fund the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools budget request, the county would need to increase the tax rate 9.01 cents. By law, the county must fund both the Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro districts at the same per-pupil rate.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district has recommended that the commissioners increase the county tax rate by an additional 2.3 cents – to a total of 6 cents – and the special district tax rate by 2.85 cents in order to enable the schools to continue the current level of service and to fund the state-mandated salary increases as well as the opening of Carrboro High School and the new elementary school.
The $172.2 million proposed county budget includes $82.5 million in funding for education, an increase of $2.2 million from this fiscal year. The recommended budget maintains the per-pupil appropriation for the school districts at $2,957, but includes funding for new students.
The county’s debt-service payments will increase by $4.6 million, including facility costs for two new schools, the new senior center, the justice facility expansion, a soccer complex and the Durham Technical Community College satellite campus.
According to Pedersen, the school budget committee has identified potential cuts that would reduce the budget increase request to reduce the budget shortfall. These include reducing teacher assistants by 50 positions, freezing local supplements for certified staff and administrators at last year’s levels and eliminating after-school tutorials for grades K-5.
“We’ll do the best we can with what the entire public can afford,†Jacobs said.
“There are more seniors than school children,†he added. “There are more people without children than with children.â€
Jacobs said the commissioners are increasingly feeling the pinch because of unfunded mandates from the state, such as teacher pay increases and Medicaid. In addition, he said, the county has a “huge swath†of departments, organizations and facilities to fund.
At this point, he said, he will “think about how best to balance the competing interests.â€
If the schools do not receive the requested budget, the district has the option to tap into its undesignated fund balance. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system has about $3.4 million in fund balance.
However, Pedersen has stressed the importance of using the fund balance for one-time expenses, rather than recurring items.
“If you keep resorting to using your fund balance, you’ll just run out,†he said. “Using the fund balance sounds good in the short-term, but you have to be really careful or else you create problems in the very near future.â€
Commissioners have said using the fund balance could be a viable option.
“It doesn’t make sense for the schools to be holding several million dollars in the bank while people are hurting,†Carey said.
Tonight’s public hearing will be held at 7:30 in the Superior Courtroom on East Margaret Lane in Hillsborough. The second hearing will be held on Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Sonja Hayes Stone Center on the UNC campus.