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Orange County Board of Commissioners <br />Page 2 <br />September 29, 2000 <br />The memorandum of understanding also incorporates the <br />service levels and requires the schools to consider a number of <br />factors, including: number of students presently enrolled; <br />projected or ongoing construction of schools or permanent <br />expansion of existing schools; projected increases in enrollment <br />due to residential grow~h as determined by approved building <br />lots and other developments in progress and "any other factors <br />deemed relevant by the school district in determining whether <br />each school level of service [will be exceeded if the] project <br />is constructed." <br />To what degree can the County's financial ability to <br />respond to school needs and projected school needs be one of the <br />"other factors" considered by the schools in making certificate <br />decisions? Put another way, can the Adequate Public School <br />Facilities Program be used to limit the amount of residential <br />development by budget decisions to allocate or not~~money for <br />school construction?- <br />. ~ <br />.~~ <br />It is not contemplated by an adequate public facilities y <br />program that the tools, the ordinances and the MOU, are growth- <br />limiting devices. Rather, the chief objective of these tools is <br />to provide a reasonable amount of time for the County as the <br />fiscal agent and the schools aG the education agent to respond <br />to the impact of residential growth on.the schools. That is, <br />they allow both the County and the schools to reasonably respond <br />to the pace of development. Therefore, the degree to which the <br />County is willing to spend money on school construction is not <br />an "other" factor to be considered by the schools in issuing <br />certificates. <br />On the other hand, the County does not have to bankrupt <br />itself and its citizens to keep school construction current with <br />population increases. That is to say, the County can establish, <br />in some broad sense debt service goals which if exceeded would <br />have the impact of severely weakening Orange County's financial <br />condition. Frankly, before the County reaches that level of <br />fiscal despair, there must be a loud hue and cry for residential <br />development land use limitation changes. If land use regulations <br />