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weaknesses, the Board could be held accountable. It is important to be aware of such situations and to make sure that these issues are addressed as soon as possible. Commissioner Foushee said that it seems that the small Finance staff may need to increase and Ken Chavious said that the mere changes in the accounting itself implies that there will be a need to add additional staff. The department has decentralized a lot of the processes to become more efficient, but the time is coming to add more staff, such as an internal auditor, and to create an audit committee, consisting of a Board member, an external representative, and staff. Doug Beelendorf said that his firm supports the idea of an audit committee. 2. Preliminary Fiscal Outlook -Fiscal Year 2008-09 and Beyond Laura Blackmon said that in past years this has been done in early winter but, but staff is working through the capital budget and will be making a presentation soon. This is a good time to talk about the fiscal outlook for next year and the budget drivers. Budget Director Donna Coffey said that the staff thought it would be a good idea to talk about the budget drivers earlier this year. She made reference to the blue booklet with graphs. She said that this time last year she never would have predicted that the State would do what it did this past summer. She said that whatever is said tonight might change significantly by the time the General Assembly is done next summer. Graph #1: Since 1998-99, Orange County has had an average annual percentage increase of 7.4% on expenditures. This equates to an $8.8 million average annual increase in the budget. In 1998, the budget was $93 million, and this year it is $173 million. Graph #2: This graph shows the dedication of the Board of County Commissioners to address education needs of the County. The Board has historically surpassed its funding target of 48.1 °~ of the total general fund going to the school systems. Graph #3: There is consistent growth in current expense expenditures going to schools (blue part of the bar graph). There has been a growth in debt service for the schools also (yellow part of the bar graph). Also, in the last couple of years, the fair funding reserve was put in place. The total funding for CHCCS and OCS is $85 million. Graph #4: There has been steady growth in per pupil funding, going from $2,040 in 1998-99 to $3,919 this year. This averages out to be just over 5°lo growth every year. Graph #5: If the trend with the per-pupil funding continues, it will cast $8.4 million just in current expense to fund the projected number of students. The student membership is anticipated to continue increasing. This year, the OCS has experienced a large increase in the number of elementary students, the majority of which are coming from the Mebane area. Graph #6: The Board approved a plan last February to issue debt, and $52 million was issued in the spring. The other plans that the Board agreed to were to debt finance the animal shelter. There is still $6.9 million in 2001 bonds that has not been sold, and the Gateway Campus has not been financed. The debt service for these is included in the debt projection numbers. The peak for debt service will be 2008-09. Commissioner Jacobs asked about the comparison of debt for the County projects versus the schools and Donna Coffey said that for 2008-09, it is $20 million for the schools and $6.5 million for the County. Graph #7: This includes preliminary projections of anticipated funding needs. Based on the assumption that the County's general fund has increased an average of 7.4°~ annually over the last ten years, by the year 2012-13, the expenditures will be at $248 million.