Orange County NC Website
Commissioner Carey: OK thank you very much, that is all I have right now. <br />Commissioner Jacobs: One quick question and then some more questions. In the <br />report on page 16 we talked about the estimated countywide tax rate increase of 17 <br />cents per $100 assessed valuation. Are you referring there to the 40% of the county <br />taxpayers who are not an the Chapel Hill-Carrboro system, or are you talking about the <br />aggregate of the County when this would be completed. <br />Rod Visser: Let me try and answer that the best way I can and ask for help here from <br />someone else if it is not clear. With a countywide district tax, and again with the <br />assumption that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district tax would be zeroed out, the effect <br />would be that somebody who lives in Orange County but outside of Chapel Hill-Carrboro <br />district tax would be paying 17 cents more per $100 valuation than they are paying now. <br />On the other hand, if your are in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district tax and are paying 20 <br />cents per $100 valuation now you would be paying 17 cents on a countywide tax rate <br />and the district tax would be zeroed out. <br />Commissioner Jacobs: So then, perhaps to make this a little clearer there would <br />actually be a tax decrease for residents of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro system. <br />Rod Visser: That is right, in that scenario. <br />Commissioner Jacobs: There is some information that I would like to insert in the <br />report when we came back in November. Some of it is just historical data and if you <br />can, put this on the web page since people are going to refer to it and it is going to <br />outlast all of us as the 1986 merger report is starting to do. I would like to see some <br />historical data on funding for the Orange County Schools and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro <br />Schools over the past. Pick a period, such as 15 years, that would be a goad period. <br />How the enrollments have changed; haw the capital spending has gone, how much one <br />cent on the tax rate currently equals -bath countywide and in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro <br />system, the percent of the population of the county that is in each district, a map that <br />shows where the district lines are just so we have same points of reference as historical <br />information. <br />I'd also be interested, if there is discussion of facility costs or facilities that would be <br />utilized if there were a merger. But I would like to at least see or ask whether there is a <br />calculation in here of the cost it seems at least of a middle school if the schools were <br />merged, one middle school might not be required in the next ten year period which is an <br />$18 million dollar plus expenditure. Is that included in your figures for how the tax rate <br />would be calculated? If not, I would like to see that worked in because obviously that <br />has some litigating impact on what taxpayers in Orange County might or might not have <br />to pay in a merged system. I'm also interested in same data on students. Haw many <br />students in each system are on free and reduced lunch? What are the percentages by <br />school and by system? If you could disaggregate the students who do not take the <br />SATs or that you can otherwise identify are more likely to be interested in the technical <br />programs, and do that by district, and also graduation and drop out rates. <br />Interestingly, some people say that they shopped all aver the state or country and <br />decided to move to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area because of the schools, so don't mess <br />with them. Which, of course is a form of growth that is being generated by the Chapel <br />