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APPROVED 9112/2006 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS BUDGET WORK SESSION June 8, 2006 7:30 p.m. The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a budget work session on Thursday, June 8, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Barry Jacobs and Commissioners Moses Carey, Jr., Valerie P. Foushee, Alice M. Gordon, and Steve Halkiotis COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Managers Rod Visser and Gwen Harvey and Deputy Clerk to the Board David Hunt {All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. 1. Chair Review of Schedule and Topics Chair Jacobs went through a few items at the Commissioners' places. There was an MSNBC.com article from Lisa Stuckey and Dr. Pedersen, two PowerPoint presentations from the school systems, a report on the recommendations of the Fair Funding Work Group, two handouts from the CHCCS about school health and safety resources, a handout on per pupil allocations to each district, and a handout about annual debt service projections and the annual debt service capacity. He made reference to Appendix Table 8. This table is North Carolina's total operations general fund since 1970. The first column has the percentage of money spent for public schools. Since 1972-1973, it has been on a steady decline as a percentage, and it is now down to 41.1 °~ as of 2000-2001, which was the last year this information was available. He said that Orange County is doing better than the State in funding the schools with 48% of its budget. He said that the County Commissioners were asking the citizens to raise the property tax every year primarily to pay for public education. 2. School Budgets and CIP - County Manager Comments John Link pointed out the basic facts of his recommendation on education in the proposed budget. He recommended $79.8 million total for both school systems, which is 48.4% of the total general fund and an increase of $7.6 million that includes operating, capital, and debt service on capital. He recommended a per pupil of $2,957, which is a $161 increase. The total recommended current expense for CHCCS is $33.1 million and for OCS, $20.6 million. This is an increase for CHCCS of $2.7 million and for OCS, just over $1 million. This is based on the number of students in each system.