
{"id":2838,"date":"2008-06-19T06:55:10","date_gmt":"2008-06-19T14:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=2838"},"modified":"2008-06-19T06:55:59","modified_gmt":"2008-06-19T14:55:59","slug":"commissioners-debate-property-tax-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/06\/19\/commissioners-debate-property-tax-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners debate property tax increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners made a preliminary decision on Tuesday to reduce the proposed ad valorem tax rate increase by 4 cents, to 99.8 cents per $100 of property valuation. <\/p>\n<p>County Manager Laura Blackmon had initially recommended an 8.8-cent increase on the tax rate. The increase would have raised the ad valorem tax rate to $1.038 per $100 of property valuation, representing a 9- percent increase over the current 95-cent rate. The new proposal would increase the tax rate about 5 percent, with just over $5 million in cuts from the $188.3 million initially proposed budget.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nUnder the new proposed budget, for a $200,000 home the ad valorem tax would increase $96 to $1,996. According to Blackmon, one cent on the ad valorem tax rate would yield about $1.27 million in revenue, a minimal increase over last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $1.25 million. <\/p>\n<p>Commissioners had said they wanted to reduce the tax rate increase to keep the rate under a dollar. Some county residents asked commissioners to reduce the proposed increase, saying the increases were too much for their already strained budgets. <\/p>\n<p>Nearly half of the general fund budget would fund the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school districts. Blackmon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s initial budget recommendations funded 98.5 percent of the two school districts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 budget requests, but the new proposals include about a million dollars in school funding reductions. <\/p>\n<p>About $660,000 of the decrease comes from a reduction in teacher pay increases due to new proposals by the state Legislature. The initial budget had included a 5-percent increase in teacher pay. However, while Gov. Mike Easley has recommended a 7-percent increase, legislators have recommended a 3-percent increase. The new proposed county budget includes the smaller 3-percent increase. <\/p>\n<p>Commissioners found additional savings by denying departments\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 requests for new positions, implementing a three-month hiring freeze for vacant positions and delaying the opening of the West Ten Soccer Complex and Northern Park. <\/p>\n<p>This year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget is particularly tight because the county is scheduled to open 11 facilities during the next year. Also, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools will open Morris Grove Elementary School and add a senior class to Carrboro High in August. <\/p>\n<p>The board will make a final decision regarding the budget at a meeting on June 24. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Susan Dickson Staff Writer The Orange County Board of Commissioners made a preliminary decision on Tuesday to reduce the proposed ad valorem tax rate increase by 4 cents, to 99.8 cents per $100 of property valuation. County Manager Laura Blackmon had initially recommended an 8.8-cent increase on the tax rate. The increase would have&#8230;<\/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-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","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=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}