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Carol Mulka spoke about affordable childcare. She has three children who have some disabilities. She asked for help so she can continue to work. She works and provides for her children but she needs help with childcare. She pays $160.00 a week for childcare. She feels the school system needs help with the learning disabled. She is a single parent and has a desire to better her life. She emphasized that people who come off of welfare need assistance and she needs it now. She feels that childcare is the primary factor that will keep people working and needs to be addressed. Patricia Muhammon spoke as a parent of children in public school and in daycare. She said that she supports public schools and also supports daycare. She said that as an employee of daycare, they are in need of subsidies for their clients and that without this continued support, they will not be able to maintain daycare teachers and assistants. She receives a subsidy and could not afford to work as a daycare provider without it. She works and takes care of her children and takes classes at Durham Tech. She asked for the Boards continued support. Lisa Combs said that she is employed as an exceptional children's teacher at Cameron Park. She mentioned a new law that every school system will have to follow starting July 1 which will demand a lot of additional work from the exceptional children teachers. Pam Carter spoke as a reading research teacher for grades 3, 4 and 5 at Hillsborough Elementary. She supports funding for exceptional children programs because they have large caseloads and not enough teachers. She feels they need enough teachers to provide an appropriate education for these teachers. Michele Rivest, Executive Director of the Orange County Partnership for Young Children, said that she supports the education budget. Also, because learning starts at birth she supports additional support for daycare subsidies. She said that there are 250 children on a waiting list. Daycare costs are expensive in Orange County. They have an increased demand on parents to go to work which places an additional demand on daycare. Smart Start has expanded to all 100 counties. Orange County will get fewer reallocated dollars for daycare subsidies. They also have expanded eligibility for North Carolina. They want to assist children to get a head start. She thanked the County Commissioners for their support for children and asked for additional dollars for childcare subsidies. FOR THE RECORD A petition was signed by 20 parents from New Hope Elementary School for support of superintendent Randy Bridges' school budget. Letters were received from Elizabeth C. Meehan-Black, Lucinda Thompson, Wanda J. McKensie, Theresa Cox, Mary C. Johnson and Sue G. Anderson for support of the Orange County School budget proposal and in particular support for the budget proposals for special education. A letter was received from Shirley K. Osterhout supporting the health care positions in the Orange County school budget. WITH NO FURTHER COMMENTS, THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS CLOSED.