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that Chapel Hill school system gets because we don't have as many students as they <br />do. And before we even go into the fact that there is a district tax, Chapel Hill already <br />gets $10 million more than Orange County schools does every year anyway because <br />they get more students. There are 4,000 more students than we get, so automatically, <br />last year's budget, they got $27 million, we got $17 million. They get that automatically <br />because they have the children. It's not just the district tax that does it; it's the fact that <br />they get more children. Are there some things we need to work on? Sure there are, <br />and you've heard parents talk about them all evening. We've talked about educational <br />opportunities and we've been working hard at getting Spanish teachers in our schools. <br />We've been working at reading recovery and we know that the reason why we can't <br />keep up with some of the teacher's pay is that all we need to do is take care of our <br />supplemental pay. And we're trying to explore areas and opportunities. We can do that <br />with a district tax. And a district tax will solve our challenges. Orange County schools <br />are not broke. We do a lot of good things. So if we start at zero, without having any <br />additional funds at all, there is no way in my mind that I think we could spend six million <br />dollars on the programs we need to raise the student achievement in our district. But <br />what we do need to put in place is to be able to use a strategic plan that we have never <br />been able to do, because it's hard to make a plan when you don't have any money at <br />the end of trying to put the plan together. It's very easy. It's awin-win situation for our <br />students, our community, and for our schools for us to have an additional tax. Our <br />citizens need to have opportunity to have a vote on that. Chapel Hill-Carrboro school <br />district have voted on that all along, because they vote it in there by moving to that <br />school district. They understand that when they ga there, there's a 20-cent district tax <br />that they have to live with when they move there. Our school district has never had an <br />opportunity to have that vote, but we should have that before we move any further. <br />A motion was made by Commissioner Halkiotis, seconded by Commissioner Gordon to <br />adjourn at 12:20a.m. <br />VOTE: UNANIMOUS <br />Margaret Brown, Chair <br />Donna S. Baker <br />Clerk to the Board <br />