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was a chance that some or most of it would get passed. At $400 per pupil, the CHCCS would be over funded, and the district tax could be cut by two cents. The recommended budget does not help OCS and inflicts a wound on the CHCCS. He made reference to the sales tax diversion and said that the County has been diverting some sales tax, generally used for capital projects, over to the operating side for the past few years. He asked the County Commissioners to consider phasing in Optian 2 and not fix the sales tax in one shot with the $4.9 million. Instead, the County could have a little less and then the rest could be given to the schools. Because of the 60140 enrollment split, a $2 million diversion towards the schools would give OCS $800,000 and CHCCS $1.2 million. This wauld save the teacher assistants in CHCCS. He said that there must be some capital items that are less critical for the coming year than the needs of the schools. Chris Mason is a Social Studies teacher at Phillips Middle School in Chapel Hill. He spoke in support of full funding for the schools. He recognizes that the process of making these decisions is difficult and painful. He said that these citizen comments are made in the spirit of helping the County Commissioners make these decisions. He said that the school resource officers could be cut if the budget is not fully funded. The SRO at Phillips is a vital resource to the students. Secondly, the middle school afterschool programs might be in jeopardy if the schools are not fully funded. This service is vital to students who struggle to achieve. Many of the students are minorities and the after - school program is very helpful in closing the achievement gap. Clayton Hearne is employed with the Solid Waste department. He said that he created a letter that was sent to John Link at the end of March "Our concerns and feelings are about the fact that we have not had a substantial pay raise in the past few years, other than the 2°~ that we received last year. While we did look forward to the 2°~ raise, even though we had to wait until October to get any benefit from it, in reality it did not cover the cost-of-living increase for the past year. The cost of living for North Carolina last year was 3.5%, and who knows what it will be this year. For example, last time this year, we were paying $1.25 to $1.35 for gasoline. Now we are paying in the range of $2.10 to $2.20 per gallon. For an average County employee who drives 20 miles to and from work each day, this is an annual increase of $400 per year. It is because of this that some of us also have been forced into working a second job just to cover our meals. After the pay and classification study that was completed in 2001-02, we really looked forward to the adjustments in everyone's pay, bringing it up to what the surrounding job market stated we should be. Our excitement was short-lived since we have returned to the prior status of no pay raises or minimum pay raises that were consistent with the time before the catch up was enacted. Now we are right back to where we were before the study. For the employees that have been here less than four years, and they were hired during this time period, they have had only one raise. Since it does not make any difference if you do a proficient job or an outstanding jab, the long- term employees are also once again behind. Plus, now, there is again salary compression between the old and new employees. The lack of in-range raises and meritorious awards is a great concern to all employees. As a group of concerned employees, we are asking that you relay our wishes to the Board of County Commissioners and suggest the following budgetary decisions for the 05-06 budget: - compensate employees for the true cost-af-living raise - reinstate the merit pay with another 2.5°~ increase - reinstate the meritorious award