Agenda - 09-04-2014 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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35 1 ages. However many of these assets are underutilized and better options may be available if 2 the county: 3 4o Aligns its $50 million master plan with Chapel Hill's $50 million plan and park plans for 5 Hillsborough and Carrboro. 6 7o Complements community-based assets such as Cane Creek Reservoir and White Cross 8 Recreation as an alternative to building redundant county facilities (such as a standalone 9 Bingham park). 10 110 Works with both school systems to co-locate future county parks with schools. 12 13- Use county reserves to meet short term school funding requirements that cannot be 14 met through cost savings. For the long term, better policies are needed to provide 15 transparency and to clarify priorities and controls over all reserves (general fund, school district 16 reserves, solid waste enterprise fund, etc.). This will assure that priorities are adequately 17 funded and that all operating agencies, including schools, have adequate reserves. Policies 18 should address legal reserve requirements, and disclosure of reserve balances and changes. 19 20 We encourage you to ask staff to find other opportunities to delay non-essential projects or 21 spending in order to free up funding for schools in the short term. 22 23 We believe that these actions and others will provide the funds needed to fully fund school 24 requests and to help keep our community affordable. In the long term, we encourage you to 25 invite educators and county professionals to work together to modernize policies for capital and 26 per student funding, and to assure everyone that schools are funded adequately and that 27 taxpayer monies are deployed to essential priorities. 28 29 Thank you for your service to our community and for considering our view on this important 30 topic. 31 32 Terri Buckner encouraged the Board to adopt the manager's proposal to fund the rural 33 curbside through the unreserved funds exclusively. She said a committee has just been 34 appointed to look at these issues long term, so the Board should let them do their work. 35 Commissioner McKee said he would support funding through option 1 or option 2. He 36 said one of the items given to the new task force is to address equitable funding and 37 mechanisms for establishing fees. He said fees could be interpreted as taxes. He supports 38 option 1 or 2 as a stopgap measure to allow time for the workgroup to bring forward a 39 comprehensive plan that makes sense in the future. 40 Commissioner Rich agreed with Commissioner McKee and said she is not in favor of a 41 tax right now without this being fully vetted. She also has a problem with raising taxes, as 42 people in the urban areas will pay more, and they do not use the convenience centers. She 43 said she will move to support option 1. 44 Commissioner Pelissier said she likes option 1, but with a caveat. She struggles with 45 option 4, as it is not really a way to fund recycling. She said this is an issue of equity in the 46 sense that urban residents do not use the convenience centers, as these are a rural service for 47 recycling and solid waste. She would like to see the Board continue with the earlier goal of not 48 having convenience centers funded from the general fund. She said this will mean less money 49 to do option 1, but these are separate. She wants to do option 1, but she also wants to do 50 option 4, though for a very different reason.