
{"id":231,"date":"2007-05-03T10:50:13","date_gmt":"2007-05-03T18:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/05\/03\/school-budgets-a-concern\/"},"modified":"2007-05-03T10:50:13","modified_gmt":"2007-05-03T18:50:13","slug":"school-budgets-a-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/05\/03\/school-budgets-a-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"School budgets a concern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By <strong>Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County schools superintendents Neil Pedersen and Shirley Carraway warned that the school districts could see major cuts if they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t receive funds requested in their annual budgets.<\/p>\n<p>The Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County boards of education met with the Board of County Commissioners on Monday night for a joint work session.<\/p>\n<p>The Board of County Commissioners has said it hopes to limit this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tax increase to equal the amount of debt-service payment increases. The county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual debt payments equal about $23.4 million\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d $17.6 million for school facilities and $5.8 million for county facilities, according to county budget director Donna Coffey.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Board of commissioners chair Moses Carey said the school boards should prepare for the possibility of receiving smaller budgets than those requested.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wise to have those discussions about scenarios that might be possible,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he told school board members. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re real.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He added that the commissioners are trying to limit the tax increase because the county increased the tax rate six cents in each of the last two years.<\/p>\n<p>According to county and school budget estimates, a one cent Chapel Hill-Carrboro district tax rate increase would generate about $790,000 in additional revenue, while a one cent county general fund property tax rate increase would generate about $1.2 million.<\/p>\n<p>Pedersen said he was concerned because about $5 million of his $7.2 million requested budget would fund anticipated salary increases mandated by the state, the cost of opening Carrboro High School and fixed costs such as utilities.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are very apprehensive about the bind that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all in,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are putting together some serious meetings about how we reduce our budget.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tried to keep everyone informed, but as I learn more about the tax situation \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all in a bind and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think there are any easy answers out of this,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>Carraway said that if Orange County schools did not receive the money the board requested, the schools would actually have less money per student because of an increase in the number of students, with Gravelly Hill Middle School\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eighth-grade class opening in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be identifying a list of things that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to cut,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The majority of that will be people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the money, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to cut, and our cuts will be people cuts,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she continued.<br \/>\nChapel Hill-Carrboro board member Mike Kelley questioned how the county accrued its debt. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I would like to understand, and I think there are other people who would like to understand, how we came to this point.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Barry Jacobs said escalating construction costs and other factors increased the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s debt.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you think about the cost increase between the time that we planned Carrboro High School, Gravelly Hill Middle School and Elementary No. 10, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably about $10 million behind what was anticipated,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My sense is that this was a confluence of circumstances,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jacobs continued.<\/p>\n<p>Carey encouraged both boards to identify potential cuts and to inform the public.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have to be transparent, you have to let people know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.\u00c2\u00a0 However, he added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We will always do the best we can.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan Dickson Staff Writer Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County schools superintendents Neil Pedersen and Shirley Carraway warned that the school districts could see major cuts if they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t receive funds requested in their annual budgets. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County boards of education met with the Board of County Commissioners on Monday night&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","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=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}