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Commissioner Foushee said that she is grateful to the Manager for bringing the tier options, because she thinks it begins to address the question of equity. She is wondering if this is appropriate for the chairs to begin addressing bringing forth a definition for equity that will meet the requirements to move forward. She thinks that equity means equal access at the bare minimum. She thinks the tiered approach is a good starting point. Lisa Stuckey said that she agrees with additional funding far OCS and that OCS should define the needs and how to meet them. She said that tier III offers some interesting possibilities, particularly with the collaboration efforts. Jamezetta Bedford said that her only concern with tier I II is that the CHCCS not stagnate. There are citizens who want to pay additional taxes for additional programming. There is a very significant increase in the CHCCS budget. She thinks tier III could be tricky, but she has nothing against fully funding the needs of OCS. Lisa Stuckey said that Jamezetta Bedford speaks far their whole board on this issue. Randy Copeland said that he disagrees that they are not equally funded. He thinks the County Commissioners do an excellent job of funding the schools. Orange County is well funded compared to a lot of the counties in the State. He said that CHCCS does choose to pay a district tax and the citizens of rural Orange County have never chosen that tax. He thinks this should go to a vote. He made reference to their budget hearing last night, and said that he came to the conclusion that no matter how much taxes are raised, there will never be enough to meet the needs and wants of the school systems. He does not think it can be equal in the County unless the people in rural Orange County vote to have a district tax equal to that of CHCCS. AI Hartkopf said that he is exceptionally grateful for the money that the Board of County Commissioners has allocated to the school systems. He said that there is equity right now and there is also democracy. He said that CHCCS has elected to exercise their democratic rights and impose additional taxes on themselves. However, a $13 million difference is considerable. He knows there is equity in the per pupil numbers. Commissioner Halkiotis asked if the Building Blocks presentation was included in the information to the school boards and it was answered na. He said that everything the County Commissioners have received in the last two weeks related to schools should be included in this information. He thinks there needs to be another meeting with the school boards before the final budget decisions are made. c. Initial Reactions of School Boards to the Educational Excellence Report Elizabeth Carter said that they recognize that the children that they serve in schools today are much different than they were 20 years ago. She thinks that there will always be the subject of funding. She thought that tier III was the way to address some of the things in the Educational Excellence Report. She does not want to feel that they are begrudged the special district tax. She truly wants the OCS to be fully funded at the rate that they deserve and she also wants CHCCS to be funded at a rate that they have become accustomed to. She hopes that CHCCS is not held stagnant because something different has to be done in OCS. Elizabeth Brawn said that it seems that the issue is that the district tax in CHCCS impacts the per pupil funding available to OCS. The only way to increase funding for OCS is to decrease the district tax in CHCCS because the State law says that the County has to fund equally per pupil. She said that the OCS board has not discussed having a tax of its own. Jamezetta Bedford made reference to Dr. Grumet's report and said that her conclusions were accurate. She said that she has a daughter with autism and severe retardation and while Dr. Grumet concludes that social workers are essential for improving exceptional children's services, it is not how it works in CHCCS. She said that Dr. Grumet's underlying reasoning was wrong.