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but she views it as a collaborative effort. Some issues should be discussed way in advance (i.e., proposed fee schedules, etc.). Chair Carey said that he likes the idea of moving this process up two or three months earlier. Commissioner Jacobs said that this is an improvement and the outside agencies should be notified of the budget calendar being moved around. Laura Blackmon said that the staff has already had discussions on this and will bring it forward to the Board of County Commissioners at a later date. There have also been discussions with the schools. 6. County Capital Funding Policy and 2008-18 Capital Plan Revenues Reference: Attachment 6-1 -County Capital Funding Policy (Apri124, 2007) Laura Blackmon said that there are implications with the legislative actions this year, so she wanted to outline some of these issues. The first issue is lottery proceeds. The Board of County Commissioners adopted an amendment to the funding policy by budgeting in arrears. The Board has other options, and she asked far direction as to whether the Board might want to discuss these options. Commissioner Gordon said that she thought that someone was going to ask the legislature about quarterly distribution of lottery proceeds. Donna Coffey said that she thought the letter was written and she will check on this. The second issue is dedicated ad valorem property tax for debt service. Laura Blackmon summarized this. She said that there were property tax revenues dedicated to be paid to debt service on the 1988, 1992, 1997, and 2001 voter-approved bonds. With the public school building fund and school construction impact fees, those are dedicated to all of the non- bond projects. Regarding the dedicated ad valorem revenues for recurring capital, the intent was to set aside three cents for recurring school funds and one cent for County capital projects. Currently, these are the only two cents budgeted. There is an option to levy a sales tax or a land transfer tax, and it appears that the County Commissioners are interested in the land transfer tax. Laura Blackmon said that she would like to talk about the revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year. She said that one of her concerns, being new to Orange County, is the amount of debt service the County has and the number of schools that are being built. The debt service is $25 million, and this is huge. Most of this is paid out of property tax, so there is very little flexibility in what can be done with the remaining property tax. She explained the chart, "Options for Dedicating Revenues to Repay Annual Debt Service." The blue line was the current funding policy. The red line is the required property tax to make up the difference if public school building funds, impact fees, and lottery were dedicated to pay for school debt. The green line includes the land transfer tax. She said that she would like the Board to consider, instead of relying heavily on property tax to pay annual debt service, to look at opening up the ability to use the property tax with more flexibility. Commissioner Foushee said that the County Commissioners have talked about how many years taxes have gone up and talked in the abstract about what could be done to change that. She is glad to see something now that may be viable and appears to be easily communicated. She wants to start somewhere. She said that she is grateful for this moving forward, which is showing an effort of meeting County needs without increasing the ad valorem.