Minutes - 20060313 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

the information. He pointed out that Commissioner Halkiotis also asked questions about square feet of heated and cooled space. Chair Jacobs said that they do have some information in the form of responses from the school boards to the questions that were posed. He said that the County Commissioners posed these questions to themselves as well as the school boards. The Board solicited comment from the school boards in the spirit of working with them in a collaborative manner and out of respect that they have a statutory authority that the County Commissioners do not have. He said that this process has not been characterized accurately in the media. He wants to be clear that the County Commissioners did not send out an assignment that they were not willing to complete themselves. Chair Jacobs said that there was no unanimity on the Board of County Commissioners either about haw to proceed, but they did generally agree on tenets regarding school equity, and did not agree on the issue of going outside the per pupil and haw to do this. These discussions are reflected in the minutes. He said that, with his reading of the school letters, there was some limited agreement that perhaps funding outside the per pupil would be considered for SROs and school nurses. He said that this was the limit of the conversation on the alternatives for funding. Chair Jacobs said that, regarding the question of if OCS needed more funding for the schools, the OCS Board thought this was humorous but at least agreed on something unanimously. He said that the OCS's attitude toward funding has changed a lot since he became a County Commissioner and they do want and need more funding. Commissioner Carey said that, in view of the lack of subsequent information they asked for, he wonders what they can discuss tonight as a Board to move along on this discussion. He thinks that all agree that the ultimate decision is with the Board of County Commissioners on what to do about school equity. He said that they need this additional information from staff before they can decide whether to move forward on alternative financing outside the per pupil. Chair Jacobs said that there is not much to do other than to direct staff to research the areas of commonality of SROs/crossing guards and nurses. He said that Commissioner Gordon had asked who funded these positions and that the information be put in a chart. He said that he and Commissioner Carey worked for a while with both school systems to come up with a process whereby they are spending in excess of $500,000 to fund nurses. He thinks that this has shown to be a way in which the County has not reduced school funding, but has freed up other monies that the school systems can use for educational purposes. There was some concern in the letters from the school systems that the County might be doing what the legislature has done. He said that the County Commissioners would not do to other people what they resent other people doing to them. They do have the courage to raise taxes if necessary. Commissioner Halkiotis asked that they look at the utility bills at both school systems, because the State turned aver the payment of these bills to the school systems. He wants to look at the possibility of the County paying for part of the utility bills. Commissioner Carey said that he and Chair Jacobs did participate in discussions of outside funding for school nurses awhile back. He said that he is not a supporter of the outside per pupil funding except for this one-time funding for nurses. He said that Commissioner Halkiotis is right about utilities and as long as this Board is sitting here, they will not play a shell game as the State does. He thinks that they risk crossing the line into the statutory responsibility of the schools when they talk about outside of the per pupil funding. He thinks it would be asking for a mess. He said that the CHCCS board tried to stay within health and safety issues as far as the outside per pupil funding suggestions. He said that many families might use this as an outlet to get money under the pretense of health and safety issues. Another concern that he has is the idea of line item budgeting of the schools by the Board of County Commissioners. Another Board may be sitting here in the future and may feel differently about doing line item budgeting for school boards.