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Commissioner Gordon said that when you fund instructional expenses, you should use per-pupil money. She thinks that when they ask the school systems, it should say, "What school expenses would you be most interested in having funded?" Commissioner Gordon said that she thinks they need to talk about not just operating, but also capital expenses. She gave an example of last year, when they did the capital funding policy; they cut the CHCCS's capital expenditures by about one cent on the district tax rate The reason the County Commissioners raised the district tax by one cent was to hold the CHCCS harmless. The Commissioners allowed the school board to choose whether they wanted to use the funds for capital ar operating. CHCCS chose to use it for operating. Historically, the Board of County Commissioners has funded per pupil because it is the law, and the district tax keeps giving CHCCS mare funding than the OCS. She thinks that there is an argument that the County has not necessarily funded the CHCCS quite as aggressively on their capital as it has the OCS. She gave an example that every level {elementary, middle, high school) in the OCS will have excess capacity, and this is not true in CHCCS. Commissioner Gordon said that she does not think they should use this mechanism to try and get around the per-pupil allocation. She would rather be straightforward and raise the countywide property tax and cut the district tax. It has to hold CHCCS harmless. She thinks that they should be careful of how they do all of this and maybe keep things easier to agree on, such as nurses. Commissioner Carey agreed with Commissioner Gordon that they should cut through all of this and go right to a formula that reduces the CHCCS district tax without harming CHCCS and increase the general property tax so that the people in the OCS would benefit. He said that all of the projects that were mentioned are attractive to him, but he thinks it is a stopgap measure to get them to move forward. The flaw in the contracting formula assumes that the County Commissioners will only respond to requests from the school boards for adding things to the contracting formula. He does not think that this will work. Chair Jacobs said that they have changed the question as stated by Commissioner Gordon to, "What school expenses would you be most interested in having funded outside of the per pupil allocation far school current expense?" They have also added a question for both school boards as follows: "Are you interested in pursuing a discussion of Orange County School Boards having taxing authority?" He suggested asking staff to put together the minutes of this conversation and forward them to the school boards. He said that the Board could have another discussion after they have heard from the school boards in early March. John Link suggested that this item could be discussed at the April joint meeting. This will be decided at the discussion in March. Commissioner Halkiotis said that the Sheriff's deputy was late in delivering the packet for this meeting. Chair Jacobs asked that all information be ready by February 28tH and this would give time for the school boards to see it. The information includes the minutes, the positions {nurses, SRO's, social workers, etc.} and the source of funding for each of the positions and the total amount of money, utility costs broken down by square foot, and the information about funding to outside agencies that provide services to schools. John Link clarified that the information on the outside agency funding did not specify how much went to schools directly, but the total amount that the County allocated to the agencies. 2.