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funding K-12 education. The process started a few years back with cutting out the utility payments. He is willing to bet that the state will stop paying for school buses. He made reference to pre-K programs and asked Neil Pedersen if they could assume this budget deficit. Neil Pedersen said that it is a bureaucracy but a lot of the kids are exceptional, which is another bureaucracy. There are daycare and school standards. He believes it is worth the money to level the playing field. Commissioner Halkiotis said that the bottom line is that this is another program that the state has put down. He thinks both school systems need more money. There is a deliberate program of cutting back funding from the state and putting the responsibility on the local county level. The schools are being asked to do things they were not doing 15-2d years ago and the financing is not there to support it. Commissioner Carey said that he appreciates the analogy of the increase in per pupil funding, but this was in the boom years and they were able to fund more. Since then, there has been a downward trend, and we are not out of that yet. This will contribute to the scarcity of resources. Commissioner Carey asked about state discretionary cuts and asked if it was incorporated in both of the budget recommendations {Governor and House). Neil Pedersen said that a portion was in the Governor's budget and another $220,QOQ is proposed in the House's budget. He said that the cuts are coming about from offsetting the expense of lowering class size. The cost of lowering class size is the same as the discretionary reductions. Commissioner Brown said that they are all in the same predicament of losing funds. She said that it is a total disaster in DSS. She thinks that everyone needs to sit down and talk about what to do about this predicament. She does not think it is going to end. She said that she appreciates people asking for the County Commissioners to raise taxes for education, but not everybody can afford that. She has no solution, but she does not want it to rip the County apart. She would like to talk about this at the next joint school board meeting. These are pass down COSts. Commissioner Brown asked about the pre-K program. A lot of citizens came last week and asked for more funding for daycare. She said that she was talking with some people that said that their programs at some of their schools were more expensive than the ones provided by CHCCS. She asked for an explanation of this. Neil Pedersen said that they are supposed to have a neutral rate so that they are not unfavorably competing against other daycares. They arrived at their figure by looking at other comparable programs and taking an average. Most of the students are not tuition paying. All of the tuition slots are not filled. Commissioner Brawn made reference to page 8, under Funds Required to Continue Current Services, and asked about Dual Language. Neil Pedersen said that this has been operating for two years in two of their schools. In the program, students are instructed in English and another language. The one in Carrbaro is English and Spanish and at Glenwood it is English and Chinese. It is acost-effective program, because the students do not need ESL services otherwise. He said that there are some transportation costs because some of the students at Glenwood do not live in the attendance zone. When they started it, there was a grant, and it has run out. Elizabeth Carter made reference to the comments by Commissioner Halkiotis and Commissioner Brown and said that each year they meet with the legislative delegation at the state level and they invited David Price to be a part of this process. They want the state and