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Rod Visser: I can offer an example that is provided from a textbook perspective, and this is <br />digging way back into classes from longer ago than I'd want to admit. The example that I recall being <br />cited was, for example, if a tornado came through and ripped a roof off the building and a school system <br />did not have adequate reserves to get that replaced immediately. What this basically provides is a way <br />around the prohibition that exists in the statutes to keep school systems from just routinely moving <br />money from current expense to capital and vice versa. There are same checks and balances that were <br />put in here that require the Board of Commissioners to approve it, and also provide an opportunity for <br />any other school board in the County to comment on that emergency request prior to the Board of <br />County Commissioners taking action on it. <br />Geof Gledhill: And ultimately, there would have to be agreement, I think, between the Board of <br />Education and the Board of County Commissioners as to whether there is an emergency before it could <br />be transferred. <br />Chair Jacobs: Other questions for staff? <br />Commissioner Gordon: Yes I would like to ask about the countywide supplemental tax. Is <br />there any more information that we need to know besides what you've given us? I was interested in the <br />process by which this could take place. Besides your recommendation about the timeline and other <br />information, but in terms of background information, have you given us everything you can think of? <br />Rod Visser: Yes, as far as I know. It doesn't mean that you might have asked a question and <br />we didn't think through it. In the materials here, as I said, Geof Gledhill has written about this topic on a <br />number of occasions actually dating back to 1990, sometimes with slightly different perspectives each <br />time. Also, the September 15t" report had quite a bit of material, both in the narrative and in the <br />appendices, that talks about the statutory workings. We hope that we have covered everything, but we <br />are certainly wide open to any questions that you might ask. <br />Commissioner Gordon: In terms of the countywide supplemental tax that the County <br />Commissioners would ask for on their own initiative, my understanding is a) we could ask for it on our <br />own initiative; b) it would be a countywide referendum; c) in the referendum document, that it would be <br />specified if it's capital or whether it's current expense and what the maximum tax rate would be; and that <br />it would have to be appropriated to the school districts within a specified time frame. What I was not <br />quite sure of is to what extent the school boards and the Commissioners would need to agree, if at all, <br />on what that money would be used for, besides the general title of capital and current expense. <br />Geof Gledhill: If the Board of County Commissioners on its own initiative calls the referendum, <br />the statutes do provide some ability on the part of the County Commissioners to direct where the money <br />would be spent in the ballot question. I think I would want to look at that more carefully before giving <br />you an opinion as to how much flexibility there is in that area. That is a nuance that I did not spend a lot <br />of time on. But I know that in the enabling legislation far calling these referendums, there is same <br />discretion provided for the group calling for the election and directing where that money goes. There <br />was something else that you said that prompted me to want to comment. <br />Chair Jacobs: Time limit. She asked about time. <br />Commissioner Gordon: I do not remember stating it exactly that way. It said that within a <br />certain number of days after the close of the month, the money had to be remitted to the school system. <br />And that is a little different from the way we appropriate money. Essentially, what I was interested in <br />asking had to do with haw general it was versus haw specific, and what kind of discretion the Board of <br />County Commissioners had, and how it might be used. There were a lot of different things you went <br />through that had to do with the County Commissioner initiative. I was just trying to make sure that <br />understood that as distinguished from all the other initiatives, which seemed to have many mare <br />limitations than the County Commissioner initiated countywide supplemental tax. <br />Geof Gledhill: That surprised me as well. Let me answer that question further than I have, but <br />let me also make the point that a supplemental tax is not a County appropriation. Once the County <br />Commissioners set the tax rate, the money belongs to the schools and it is not an appropriation like the <br />annual current expense appropriation ar the annual capital appropriation from the County <br />Commissioners. And what that means is that the money is turned over as we speak with respect to the <br />Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system district tax as it is collected. And you have seen that some in the <br />different way in which fund balances are presented to you in order to accommodate that different way in <br />which the money comes to the school systems. On the other hand, the County's current expense <br />