
{"id":19017,"date":"2011-06-16T10:29:42","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=19017"},"modified":"2011-06-16T10:29:42","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:29:42","slug":"county-set-to-approve-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/06\/16\/county-set-to-approve-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"County set to approve budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Joshua Lucas<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Orange County commissioners Tuesday night nudged and tweaked the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget for next year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c nipping here, tucking there, ending up with a budget that spends about what they planned to before adjusting it.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, the commissioners agreed to a $177 million budget that, barring last-minute changes, they plan to approve at their June 21 meeting. The commissioners spent considerable time discussing a library agreement with the Town of Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n<p>In tweaking the budget, the commissioners gave some hints as to their priorities in the coming year, especially in the area of solid waste. They are balancing competing priorities \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the desire on the part of some residents to extend service hours at the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disposal sites and the need to upgrade those sites for the day several years hence when the county closes its landfill and begins sending waste outside the county.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we just use the fees to increase hours, that is not going to be sustainable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Commissioner Pam Hemminger said. <\/p>\n<p>The board eventually approved the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommended plan, which calls for rolling out improvements to the sites, but asked the county to explore a model that keeps all convenience centers open for at least a few hours each Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>In other business:<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The commissioners signaled they have no plans to spend money to improve the site once intended for an 11th Chapel Hill-Carrboro elementary school in the Northside neighborhood and plan to reach a final decision on what to do with the property within the coming year.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 County employees would see a one-time bonus payment of $500 to offset three years of essentially flat budgets under an amendment the board asked county staff to make. The bonuses would cost an estimated $600,000 and would come from savings in this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The board voted to increase fire taxes in four districts \u00e2\u20ac\u201c New Hope, Orange Grove, Orange Rural and White Cross. Two commissioners expressed concern at how high the fire tax would reach in New Hope district \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 8.95 cents on $100 assessed value of real estate \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but unanimously approved the increases in all four districts.  <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not being careful with their money; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that they have different demands,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Commissioner Earl McKee said of the New Hope Fire District, citing their efforts to improve the district\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insurance ratings by improving fire coverage.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The commissioners unanimously rejected a plan to spend $152,000 on the county-owned building at 112 N. Churton St., opting instead to explore selling the building on the open market. The building had once been considered as a small-business incubator site for economic development.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The building and the location have a greater value than it would have as a business incubator,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Commissioner Steve Yuhasz said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Orange County commissioners nudged and tweaked the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget for next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19017"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19044,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017\/revisions\/19044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}