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because I think this responds to what we've been hearing from the public in all of the public hearings,
<br />and I might add that, in the three public hearings, while some people may perceive it to be
<br />overwhelmingly anti-merger, 30°~ of the people in the first public hearing spoke in favor of merger, 40%
<br />in the second, and 35% in the third. That's significant in my opinion. And I think that moving in this
<br />direction and giving the public the option to make the decision would at least give a vision of when the
<br />acrimony and the divisiveness might end an this issue.
<br />Commissioner Gordon: Obviously, part of my proposal would agree with that. It will take a
<br />little while for me to absorb what Commissioner Corey's proposal contains. I certainly think something
<br />that would address the funding disparity between the two school systems as soon as possible has to be
<br />seriously considered. What I said in my rationale leading up to the same proposal that I made on
<br />November 11t", is that I didn't support merger, because I couldn't see arguments for merger beyond the
<br />equality of funding, or the equity in funding or correcting the funding disparity. To me, arguments are
<br />compelling to correct the funding disparity as soon as passible, and that's July 1, 2004. I feel that it's
<br />crucial, and one of the things that Commissioner Corey's idea would do would be to address the funding
<br />disparity as soon as possible. Also, it has the aspect of a vote, which I think is very good. I don't know
<br />when the Board wants to decide about the supplemental tax. I detected at the other discussion that we
<br />had, that the Board wanted to mull things over a little bit more. But I do feel that something to address
<br />the funding disparity has to be done as soon as possible. I don't think we can let that continue. I just
<br />don't see that merger is necessary. I just see that collaboration and especially correcting the funding
<br />disparity is absolutely necessary. So let me think about your proposal, because it has a lot of elements
<br />that I would support in terms of how you stated it.
<br />Commissioner Brawn: The clarification on this and an both of your proposals would be
<br />important about a district tax or supplemental tax. It is the same thing, if I'm not wrong. And what
<br />you've both proposed is just a slight variation of beginning that process of reducing the Chapel Hill
<br />district tax and implementing a countywide tax for schools. But I do want to clarify one issue, and I think
<br />Commissioner Carey mentioned it at the bottom here, that putting in Commissioner Gordan's proposal
<br />does not truly tell us the details of how much money would be raised for the Orange County system and
<br />also the Chapel Hill system. This would have to be done in a per pupil way. And so we talk about
<br />immediate monies to alleviate the Orange County system's budget issues, but we also need to know
<br />how much money the Orange County system would get. And I have not seen any figures that represent
<br />that. But proportionally, John, maybe you could just comment on afour-cent increase for Orange
<br />County, what would be the equivalent amount increase for Chapel Hill?
<br />Jahn Link: I think Rod Visser, who helped develop these charts that we presented during our
<br />report of September 15`", may recall what the mathematical breakdown is between the two systems.
<br />But obviously when the Chapel Hill-Carrbaro system had 10,000-11,000 students to the Orange County
<br />system who has 7,000, then proportionally on a per pupil basis, of course, the Chapel Hill system
<br />receives more money of every dollar than you can credit to the Orange County system. We can
<br />certainly come back with more detail charting of examples of how a countywide district tax would work.
<br />We'd be glad to do that. We'd be glad to research, along with the attorney, how Commissioner Corey's
<br />proposal would work from a legal perspective. I don't know whether that would take special legislation
<br />to pursue, or if it's something that is provided far right now in terms of the election process.
<br />Rod Visser: I think John has got the right idea. We can bring back a table that would show for
<br />various levels of a supplemental tax countywide, how much of that would go to Chapel Hill-Carrboro,
<br />and how much of that would go to Orange County. But it's basically a 62-3$ split thereabouts, based on
<br />the different student populations.
<br />Commissioner Brown: So, if you did this, as Commissioner Gordon suggests, you'd give a
<br />fairly large sum also to the Chapel Hill-Carrbaro system.
<br />Rod Visser: Right now we're just under $1 million per penny that comes on the tax rate. So, for
<br />four cents, let's say, for argument's sake, it's $4 million that would come from that. Sixty-two percent of
<br />that, which is $2.5 million, would go to the Chapel Hill-Carrbaro system and $1.5 million to the Orange
<br />County system.
<br />Commissioner Brawn: I feel like we need to be very scrupulous when we speak of addressing
<br />the Orange County financial issues, and also saying that we are in this dilemma of funding an a per
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