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he thinks one of the issues with the district tax vote for OCS was that there was no great incentive for the OCS board to go out and support the concept because it would have been extremely painful. He does not think that the County Commissioners would increase the tax rate by 18 cents. He knows that the taxing authority would not pass in the legislature. Chair Jacobs said that they could ask the school boards an additional question, which is, "Would you like to pursue the possibility of having your own taxing authority?" If they say yes, then the Board can have further discussion about what this means, preferably not in this budget cycle. There is a joint meeting in September and they can talk about it then. The Board agreed. Question # 2: What school programming aspects would you be most interested in having funded outside of the per-pupil allocation for school current expense? Commissioner Foushee said that SRO's are funded differently throughout the two districts. She said that in OCS, the Sheriff provides SRO's but the school system still pays for them. She thinks that they should consider the number of SRO's. She said that Carrboro made contact with her and they were funding them with a grant, and now the grant is ending and they will be requesting funding from the district. She suggested a funding source outside the per-pupil allocation for SRO's. With regard to school nurses and social workers, these are already being funded outside the per-pupil and she would like this to stay the same. Commissioner Gordon reviewed her answer to question 2, as shown below. When adding new programs, the commissioners and school boards should collaborate in formulating the best approach to take. The underlying assumption of this question might be that the decision has already been made to pursue more current expense funding outside of the per pupil allocation. I believe that decision can only be made as a result of cooperative discussions involving the commissioners and the two school boards. There should be guidelines on which we agree. If we decide to pursue this method for funding additional programs, then I believe we should utilize the Grumet report as a basic reference document. As indicated above in my answer to the first question, I believe we should consider the funding of facilities as well as the funding of programs when making any decisions concerning the fair funding of the schools. Commissioner Gordon said that she would like to formally request information on what is already being done outside the per-pupil in terms of funding programs. Chair Jacobs said that if they do identify areas where they want to pursue further information, they will ask as a Board to get everything of interest. Commissioner Gordon said that she would like to know who paid for the school nurses far each school system and the total amount spent far school nurses, social workers, and any other positions. Commissioner Halkiotis would like information on what it would cost to have a nurse at each school site to meet the ratio the State recommends. Commissioner Gordon said that on September 13th, there was information on non-profit agencies providing services to schools, which totaled over $1 million. She wanted updated copies of this.