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asked for the County Commissioners to consider the Manager's budget for Orange County employees. Gary Wallach spoke in support of the CHCCS. He said that when he spoke two nights ago, he was unaware of the historical commitment Chapel Hill has had to education. According to the County Tax Assessor, the education tax paid by Chapel Hill dates back about 85 years. He said that over many years, they have built up something to be proud of. They do not want this system to be slowly dismantled by losing teacher assistants and resource officers. He said that they would be willing to pay more to ensure that this system is preserved. He said that an extra two cents per hundred-dollar value comes out to about $62 for the average house in the district. He urged the County Commissioners to consider helping them maintain what they have and to agree on a budget that would cover the costs of educating the children. Liz Brown said that this is her 7th year coming to budget public hearings. She is now an OCS board member and she is starting to lose patience about the inequities between the school systems. Every year she asks far full funding, and every year she loses. There is always a new excuse. She said that the most the County Commissioners have ever funded the schools since she has spoke is 95%, and that year CHCCS got 103%. She said that the only way to increase per pupil funding for County students is by lowering the City's district tax. She explained this scenario to Judge Howard Manning and he immediately understood the link between the district tax and the OCS funding. He confirmed that this is inequitable. She said that if there is any doubt to the definition of equity or inequity, then she will define unconscionable, which means, "not guided by conscience; unscrupulous; shockingly unfair or unjust." She said that to continually refuse to provide sufficient funds to one group of students while providing more resources to the mare vocal, wealthier majority is unconscionable. She said that in the hallway Tuesday night, those people who could not fit into the auditorium were offered a large poster to sign to support school funding. This was on the back of a "Stop Merger" poster. She said that this was the subtext of the evening. City parents are worried about lasing staff people that County students have lived without for years. City students will attend a new environmental showplace high school with state-of-the-art amenities, while students at Orange High study in classrooms that do not even meet OSHA safety standards, and they use bathrooms without stall doors. A County school's district tax would only perpetuate the problem, with the City tax driving its budget, while the County residents sit by lovely, non-taxpaying green space. She said that she read a tax equity study commissioned by the Board of County Commissioners in 1989, which concluded that rural residents indeed subsidized urban dwellers in bath Chapel Hill and Carrboro. For every dollar County residents paid in taxes, they received 84 cents worth of services. Meanwhile, City residents received $1.10, and this did not even include schools. She said that it is time to stop trumpeting the success of the City schools when it is clearly at the expense of the County's children. Commissioner Halkiotis said that, for a historical perspective, Principal Patrick Rhodes at Orange High School had the doors removed from bathroom stalls. It was a site-based decision. Mary Ellen Olsen is a CHCCS parent. She asked for full funding of both school budgets. She is in favor of raising taxes to do this. She said that millions of dollars of tax money at all levels of government go to programs that help people who have not been successful in life or to react to people who are not successful in life. She feels that improving the education system will lessen the total tax burden, by lessening the need for the assistance programming in the future. She said that if the school has to cut a