Minutes - 20050122 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Jahn Link said that when they come back with a staff analysis of these issues, particularly the mix of revenues when they prioritize the projects, they will speak to each of the major funding sources of the subset of activity as the Board looks at the target of 60140. He said that there are factors that the Board has to consider that all together create a structure for how to ultimately reach the priorities to fund. He thinks that putting the priorities in place is essential before proceeding. Commissioner Jacobs said that the scheduled CIP work session is not until March 22nd, so it would be difficult to follow the timetable that was followed before. John Link said that even if there is a band referendum this year, nothing could be done with it until the next two years anyway. He believes that Elementary #10 can still be addressed. Commissioner Halkiotis agreed with Commissioner Gordon that in looking out the next ten years, the Orange County school system does not need any new buildings, but the Chapel Hill-Carrbaro City school system will probably need something. The bond will be a hard sell far some people in the OCS district, and he thinks the County should be proactive and get a small group of elected officials right now with both school boards, the Manager, and the staff to have some preliminary discussions. Chair Carey agreed with Commissioner Halkiotis, but said that regardless of what is done, there has to be priority lists from bath school systems and the County far the next ten years. Also, even if a school bond is passed this year, the County could not sell the bonds until two years from this fall because of the debt policies. It might take some time far all entities to establish the priority lists. There is also a tremendous public education effort that has to happen. He thinks there is not enough time to do it this year, based on what he is hearing. Commissioner Jacobs said that instead of putting together a group to talk about the schools' priorities, he suggested using the school collaboration group and then coming together at the joint meeting in April. Commissioner Gordan made reference to CHCCS Elementary School #10 and said that it was supposed to be funded in the last bond, and they were proceeding on the assumption that it would be funded from alternative financing. John Link said that he misspoke, and elementary school #10 would be funded with alternative financing, as Commissioner Gordan stated. Jahn Link said that this reinforces that the Board needs to be more aggressive in examining haw to spend the $12.8 million set aside for Elementary #10. There are additional needs for Middle School #3 and High School #3, and also for the senior centers and the animal shelter. The real question is when the County does need a bond referendum and for what purpose. 2. SCHOOLS Updates A. Educational Excellence Study Report and Recommendations Dr. Madeline Grumet said that they are close to completion of the report. She said that they were funded with $25,000 in July to do the work, and they have been careful to work closely with the Educational Excellence Task Force, which is composed of the two school superintendents, Commissioners Jacobs and Halkiotis, John Link, and Rod Visser. Bill Friday was able to attend the first two meetings. The first thing that they did as a group was to negotiate the kinds of questions that they might examine. They did not want to stress the schools, but they felt that it was important to speak to each school principal in the two districts. They had an intuition, which turned out to be correct, that in many cases the differences among schools within a district were more significant than the differences between the two districts. She said that the two school districts were excellent. They spent a lot of time looking at the school report card data and the achievement data. She said that they are struggling to get