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Estimated tax rate impacts <br />. 3 year scenario - 16.9 cents <br />. 5 year scenario -16.5 cents <br />. 10 year scenario - 10.6 cents <br />Hypothetical OCS District Tax <br />^ Requires majority vote in referendum <br />^ Would take effect fiscal year following vote <br />^ Board of Commissioners may initiate election; must call for election if school board <br />petitions <br />^ Would operate simultaneously with CHCCS district tax; assumes CHCCS is "held <br />harmless" <br />^ One cent an an OCS district tax would generate less than one cent on CHCCS district <br />tax <br />^ Estimated 2003-04 tax rate needed to generate $1,167 per pupil would have been <br />22.4 cents <br />This concluded the presentation. <br />The foJJoWing was transcribed verbatim, by requesf <br />Commissioner Carey: I just want to commend the County Manager and his staff, both <br />school systems' superintendents and their staff for putting together this very thorough <br />and clear report. I appreciate it. I read it aver the weekend and had an opportunity to <br />scan it and then I read mare of it today. Yau all have done a great jab and I think this <br />will provide a lot of clarity to the public. It won't answer all of the questions, but this <br />process wasn't designed to answer every question at this stage. <br />Before I get to the other questions, I'll say that I hope this board and the staff will take to <br />heart the County Manager's suggestions about other public outreach opportunities <br />because I think that the public needs that, and will demand it and I will certainly make <br />myself available, as I have in the past, even before tonight, to do outreach, to meet with <br />any group, and talk with civic groups and I hope our staff and other Commissioners will <br />do the same. But I know that is not something that we can compel anybody to do other <br />than ask the staff. Since the staff works for the Commissioners we can ask you all to <br />make yourselves available to the public and non-profit and other types of civic groups to <br />help provide some clarity to this information and I hope we will continue to do that as this <br />process moves along. <br />My questions relate to whether the staff had the opportunity to see any of the prior <br />mergers that have occurred that were done with a phased zeroing out of the district tax if <br />there was one in place in those areas. <br />John Link: My recollection is that there is not an example of any merger phased-out <br />process of the district tax because, as we've said, I think this State law is going to <br />require that with merger, the effective date would require that the per pupil of the highest <br />district be assessed on day one. There isn't any phase-in in terms of incrementally <br />increasing the tax rate. Now of course there is, as we point out, when it comes to an <br />equity model where you're pursuing, without merger, a reduction of inequity over time. I <br />would say also that I don't believe, and again, remember that the closest merger process <br />geographically and in time to Orange County is the merger between Durham City and <br />