Orange County NC Website
are intended to serve across decades. They cast in the tens of millions of dollars. <br />Therefore their planning and execution requires the greatest possible care. <br />We applaud the efforts of the Board of Education of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City <br />Schools (CHCCS) as it sought to balance sometimes-competing demands and <br />imperatives in siting its third, and Orange County's fifth, high school. Those efforts have <br />been formidable, and in keeping with the Board of Education's role as an advocate for <br />the best interests of its students. <br />The role of the Board of County Commissioners is to fund schools and the <br />educational programs that take place within them. Yet that is only one aspect of our <br />multifaceted responsibilities. It is within that larger context that we view the matter of <br />school siting, funding and function, and our allocation of $27.8 million far a new high <br />school. <br />The landscape of our county continues to change before our eyes -- physically <br />and socially --and we must remain attuned to those changes. <br />Construction of this newest high school in the CHCCS district, and a funded <br />middle school slated for the Orange County system, will enable our community to realize <br />a longtime goal: VIle will be almost caught up in providing facilities to accommodate what <br />has been explosive student growth. Approximately 6,500 students were added to the <br />county's public school rolls since the 1988-89 school year, according to figures provided <br />by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI). That total surpasses the entire 2002- <br />03 enrollment in the Orange County system. <br />Orange County has built 10 new schools {including Rashkis Elementary in the <br />CHCCS system} since 1988, an average of one every 18 months. The total cost was <br />$170 million. Additional capital spending for schools aver that period amounted to $84 <br />million, yielding a combined capital investment of more than a quarter of a billion dollars <br />for schools. <br />That aggressive capital spending, coupled with high annual per-pupil allocations, <br />placed Orange County at the forefront of "actual effort" in school spending in North <br />Carolina every year since 1997 and in the top five annually since 1990, according to the <br />N.C. Public School Forum. <br />Our 10-year capital investment plan (CIP} sets out the likely casts of major <br />capital projects proposed by both school districts and the county. The CIP anticipates <br />several more, as yet unsited, new schools in the CHCCS system. The Orange County <br />system is expected to confront far fewer capacity needs in the coming decade. <br />Key to assuring the predictability of our fiscal projections are a county policy that <br />limits indebtedness to 15 percent of total spending, a defensible and agreed-upon <br />method for projecting student populations, and the advent of the Schools Adequate <br />Facilities Ordinance (SAPFO). The adequate facilities ordinance allows local <br />government to pace growth to our ability to provide services, assuring the timely <br />provision of sufficient school space to meet the needs for quality education of growing <br />student populations. SAPFO allows us to adjust spending across the decade through <br />fiscal year 2013-14 with a level of certitude currently lacking in North Carolina <br />educational planning. <br />Given the fact that we've nearly caught up in providing schools, and can project <br />spending with some accuracy, it is imperative we take an historical view of future <br />spending. <br />Since 1988, spending on schools -- including bonds, alternative financing, sales <br />tax revenues and other funds -- has accounted for 77 percent of county capital projects. <br />County government under numerous commissioners has put schools first. <br />Now we are in a position to address long-neglected county projects that are <br />essential to meeting the diverse needs of our evolving county. However, in order to have <br />