By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
The biggest budget story of next year has already started, and without much surprise. The construction in the Northside neighborhood of Elementary School 11 by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School District loomed large over next year’s finances, as county and school officials sat down Tuesday night to look over this year’s impact of cuts to county and state education budgets.
The meeting at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill Tuesday night drew together the boards of both county school districts and the county commissioners. Its focus was the final budget numbers for the fiscal year ending June 30 and a glimpse ahead at the outlook for next year.
Both the city and county school systems took a substantial hit when a recession-driven drop in tax revenues led to budget cuts.
City schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen said the district wound end up having to axe 32 teaching positions, among other cuts, and would have had to cut more if not for federal stimulus funds, which helped offset the zeroing out of state funding for non-instructional positions such as clerical workers, janitors and support staff.
In its budget for the new fiscal year, which started July 1, the state cut funding for support positions and sent funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to local districts to make up for some of the cuts. That still left the district short about $2 million in state funding. Pedersen also noted that the district also had to pick up the tab for support personnel benefits since the state was no longer willing to pay them.
Both districts also received stimulus funding for “shovel ready†projects, including Carrboro High’s arts wing and a new auditorium at the county district’s Stanford Middle School.
Superintendent Patrick Rhodes said that while the stimulus funding helps, he expects next year’s budget to be tight.
“It’s going to be another year of difficult decisions,†he said.
Capital projects
The biggest line item the county faces next year is the $34 million elementary school planned for Northside. The Chapel Hill Town Council opened a public hearing on plans for the school Monday night.
Funding for the school has not been set. Originally due to open in fall 2010, the commissioners opted to remove it from this year’s Capital Improvements Plan because it would have caused the county to exceed its debt-service limits. The county put up roughly $974,000 for planning and design of the school.
Pedersen told commissioners that the district decided to move ahead with the design and to seek approval from Chapel Hill and he believes the plans could be approved by the end of November.
School officials said they can’t delay the project much longer. In a letter to the county prior to the meeting, school board chair Lisa Stuckey noted that if the project started next year and was completed in August 2012, by the time the school opened the district would be over capacity by 459 students. Stuckey wrote that given the circumstances, the district may have to start denying applications from residential developers who must provide certification under the county’s adequate public facilities ordinance that there is room in the schools to obtain final approval for construction permits.
“The [special use permit] will be good for five years,†Pedersen said.
Commissioner Alice Gordon said she’d like to see the commissioners start a discussion soon on how to fund the project. Commission chair Valerie Foushee agreed but cautioned that the funding plan will have to take into account the county’s debt capacity.
Gordon also said she’d like to see improvements to the Culbreth science labs. Pedersen agreed the labs are small and need to be replaced, but added that the project would be expensive since the classrooms would need to be expanded. New labs would require more than just an upfit of the present facilities, he said.
Rhodes said the county school leaders have a much different problem from their counterparts in southern Orange. Four out of seven of the county’s schools are more than 50 years old, he reminded the board.
“We all know that when you’re dealing with old schools, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done,†he said.
And unlike the city district, the county system’s enrollment has stabilized. Rhodes said that even though there was a spike in enrollment this year of 90 new students, he does not expect that the district will need to construct any new schools for several years.
Commissioner Barry Jacobs said he would like to see the school districts and commissioners revisit the discussion of funding equity between the two systems — a major topic of conversation when the county discussed the possibility of merging the two systems.
Jacobs said the new elementary school in Northside and the likelihood that another middle school will be needed soon means that the county will spend about $90 million building new schools for the city district.
Will the $34 million elementary school planned for Northside really be nearly three times better than Rashkis, which was built at a cost of about $13 million?
The cost per desk for the new school works out to about $62,000 per pupil. That is just for the space. It costs over $125,000 to educate a child from K – 12th grade.
That means the new house that we want to build for a family with two children is going to wind up costing this community $374,000 in increased educational expenses.
According to the article “[Board chair Lisa] Stuckey wrote that given the circumstances, the district may have to start denying applications from residential developers who must provide certification under the county’s adequate public facilities ordinance that there is room in the schools to obtain final approval for construction permits.”
I think it was high time to make that call several years ago!