Minutes - 06-07-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Roger Walden said that next week at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schaal Board meeting, they would be looking at a facilities report and the future. There has been excellent collaboration between the school staff and the County staff. Gloria Foley pointed out that the webmaster would not only be creating sites but also looking at how technology could save money and achieve efficiency. She suggested having someone come in and create the websites and then hire someone that would work far all three entities to maintain the websites. Commissioner Brown supported this idea saying that this was the recommendation from the Information Technology Committee. Commissioner Gordon asked if any of the expansion items had priorities over other ones and Superintendent Pederson said no. Commissioner Jacobs made reference to the Schaals Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance and said that it could help to determine future student population. He believes that at some point the three entities, the two school boards and the County Commissioners, need to look at how to deal with school funding in a more holistic way. He gave several scenarios -continue how it is being done now, have a district tax for the Orange County system, collaborate on positions or functions between the two school systems. He feels that to keep going through this same exercise where no one goes away satisfied is not the way to continue business. He would like to see a work group talk about these budgeting issues ar set up a different group using the Institute of Government to help with the process of looking at issues to see if there is same new way of budgeting for schools and other County responsibilities. Commissioner Brown asked if the school systems had any comments about the writing test scares that were in the paper. Superintendent Neil Pedersen said that the scores seemed to be erratic. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City schools are trying to have a strong writing program and he feels that over time the scores will increase. Commissioner Brawn feels we can plan in late August to set up a series of meetings to get to some of these issues. The staff can work over the summer to set the agenda to discuss technology, mandates, etc. Chair Carey said that a group also needs to meet on capital funding for the schools. Commissioner Halkiotis said that the idea of putting together a group is okay but we need to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past. He does not think the process looked deep enough to see what was under the surface. He feels there needs to be more investigation in the process of budgeting for schools. d. Manager°s Remarks -_ Orange Countv School Reauested Budget John Link pointed out that in most years, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City school system has grown at a rate much greater than the Orange County school system. He said that in order for the Orange County school system to receive 100% of its request, the per pupil allocation would have to be $2,544. The recommended funding from the general fund is almost one million dollars less than what was requested. The base amount of money for Orange County schools is not rising very quickly because there are not as many new students. He said that he was having a hard time coming up with something innovative in allocating more money other than examining the idea of the Orange County school system pursuing a district tax. e. Orange Countv School Presentation Susan Halkiotis, Chair of the Orange County School Board, thanked the County Commissioners for their comments. She made comments after the Superintendent made his presentation. Superintendent Randy Bridges highlighted some of the accomplishments of the school system. Six of the schools were identified as exemplary schools and two were identified as schools of distinction. The test scores have also been going up. Eight of the schools went to the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities Accreditation program, and all eight were successfully accredited. He summarized the vision statement, mission statement, and system priorities of the Orange County school system. The mandates included in the Superintendent's recommended budget included an 8°~ teacher salary increase, utilities, Charter schools, two ESL teachers, and partial start-up costs for Pathways Elementary. The mandates make up 75% of the recommended budget. The expansion items include two additional core teachers at A. L. Stanback, a Reading Resource teacher at Hillsborough