
{"id":10569,"date":"2010-05-20T12:43:40","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T20:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=10569"},"modified":"2010-05-20T12:43:40","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T20:43:40","slug":"county-manager-recommends-cuts-no-tax-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/05\/20\/county-manager-recommends-cuts-no-tax-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"County manager recommends cuts, no tax increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday took its first look at County Manager Frank Clifton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $174.9 million proposed budget, which includes no increase in the property-tax rate and across-the-board cuts to allocations to county departments and services, nonprofit agencies and both school districts. <\/p>\n<p>The proposed budget represents a 1.5 percent decrease from the $177.6 million 2009-10 budget and an $8.9 million decrease from the 2009-10 amended budget. The budget maintains the current ad valorem tax rate of 85.8 cents per $100 of valuation. The proposal also recommends no increase on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools special district-tax rate.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think the county commissioners recognized beginning last fiscal year the hurdles we face going forward in Orange County, mostly as a result of exterior economic factors, but also as a culmination of many issues coming together at the same time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Obviously, in a budget process of this nature, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had to reach out and touch everybody, and in doing so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure some will feel that others should\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been treated differently or they should\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been treated differently in the process.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Under the proposed budget, only two county departments would not have fewer employees in fiscal year 2010-11 than in 2009-10, he added. The only added county positions are to EMS, which is severely understaffed, according to recent reports. <\/p>\n<p>Recommended funding for both school districts totals about $84.1 million, or 48.1 percent of the general fund budget, and represents a $1.3 million decrease from 2009-10 funding. However, the funding maintains the per-pupil allocation of $3,096, with most of the cuts to long-range and pay-as-you-go capital. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools had requested a $62 per-pupil increase, while Orange County Schools requested no increase to the per-pupil rate. <\/p>\n<p>Other proposed savings include: <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 closing the Cedar Grove Library, for savings of $31,871;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 reducing the hours at the Carrboro Branch Library and the Cybrary, saving $17,873 and $50,771, respectively; <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 providing $848,600 for 36 of 56 nonprofit agencies who applied for funding, about $200,000 less than last year; and <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 providing no cost-of-living or salary increases for county employees.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Going forward<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nClifton said finding a way to increase the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commercial tax base \u00e2\u20ac\u0153needs to be a priority\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the county as it looks toward the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We rely on property taxes as the revenue source for Orange County,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That obviously puts a burden on those people who pay property taxes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>According to county Finance Director Clarence Grier, one cent on the ad valorem property-tax rate equals about $1.5 million, about a 1.1 percent increase over the previous year. Property-tax revenues this year totaled about $132 million \u00e2\u20ac\u201c more than 75 percent of general-fund revenues. By comparison, property-tax revenues equaled about 66 percent of revenues in 2006. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sales-tax revenues for this county are declining and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably going to continue to happen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said, adding that while Orange County ranks second in the state in per-capita income, it ranks 77th in sales-tax collections per capita. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The clear indication is that people who live in Orange County shop elsewhere,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. <\/p>\n<p>The board is scheduled to review the proposed budget at a number of work sessions over the next month, with final budget approval by June 15. <\/p>\n<p>The board will hold two budget public hearings: today (Thursday) at 7 p.m. at the Department of Social Services building on Mayo Road in Hillsborough and Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center on Homestead Road in Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday took its first look at County Manager Frank Clifton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $174.9 million proposed budget, which includes no increase in the property-tax rate and across-the-board cuts to allocations to county departments and services, nonprofit agencies and both school districts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10570,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10569\/revisions\/10570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}