
{"id":992,"date":"2007-09-27T07:12:57","date_gmt":"2007-09-27T15:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/09\/27\/tax-to-be-on-the-ballot-in-may\/"},"modified":"2007-09-27T07:13:42","modified_gmt":"2007-09-27T15:13:42","slug":"tax-to-be-on-the-ballot-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/09\/27\/tax-to-be-on-the-ballot-in-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax to be on the ballot in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Board of County Commissioners presented land transfer and sales tax options to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County boards of education at a joint work session on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The board earlier this month voted to put a tax referendum on the ballot next May. Commissioners decided not to put a referendum on the ballot in November, expressing concern that there was insufficient time to educate the public.<\/p>\n<p>In this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s state budget, the Legislature gave counties the option of a 0.4 percent land transfer tax or a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help compensate for money taken away from counties in a deal to turn responsibility for paying for Medicaid over to the state.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As a result of the budget deal, counties lost state-supplied school construction money this year and will lose some sales tax revenue in coming years. Orange County will lose about $500,000 this year through the changes in funding.<\/p>\n<p>According to county budget director Donna Coffey, the land transfer tax would yield a little more than $4 million in revenue annually, while the sales tax increase would yield just over $3 million.<br \/>\nIf either measure passed, the county could begin collecting funds during the 2008-09 fiscal year. County Manager Laura Blackmon said the funds could help \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reduce or slow down the increase of the ad valorem taxes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but would not serve \u00e2\u20ac\u0153as a replacement for that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>School officials hope the funds could help during tight budget years. Chapel Hill-Carrboro has several new schools on the horizon, and strained budgets are anticipated.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the commissioners have indicated support for the land transfer tax over the sales tax. Several school board members said they also preferred the land transfer tax.<\/p>\n<p>Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board Vice Chair Pam Hemminger said shoppers might choose to spend their money in other counties if Orange County has a higher sales tax.<\/p>\n<p>Jean Hamilton, Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board member, questioned whether both tax options should be put on the ballot.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It seems to me in this environment of uncertainty, it would make sense to put both on the ballot,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pass, all of the needs for it are not going to go away,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d board Chair Moses Carey said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to build schools. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to build those parks at some point.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All we will have to rely on is ad valorem tax until we get one of these passed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board member Annetta Streater emphasized the importance of educating the public about the taxes and how the funds could be used.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the past, there were a lot of people who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the decision because they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know enough about the issues,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Ted Triebel, vice chair of the Orange County school board, said he would like to know how the funds would be spent before he campaigned for the referendum.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very amorphous right now as to where these funds will be going,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not willing to go out and expend energy and speak personally if I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have an idea of where we come down &#8230; and where these funds are going to be.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to make it clear, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not hearing clarity right now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Carey said the commissioners had not yet had time to discuss where the funds would be dedicated, but that they would likely make a decision soon.<\/p>\n<p>The Board of County Commissioners must make a decision by February on which tax option, or both, to put on the May 6 ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan Dickson Staff Writer The Board of County Commissioners presented land transfer and sales tax options to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County boards of education at a joint work session on Tuesday. The board earlier this month voted to put a tax referendum on the ballot next May. Commissioners decided not to put&#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-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","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=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}