Minutes 05-28-2015 - Laserfiche WebLink

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children out of well regarded private schools, and sending them to his local CHCCS. He said he is a tenured faculty member at UNC School of Medicine. He said in the past year five new faculty members have been recruited. He said these new faculty members noted that the primary community driver that brought them here is the quality of the public schools. Michael Lee said millions of dollars have been taken from the public schools in the past 7 years by the State. He said the current County budget is stepping up, and he thanked them since no one else will do this. He said, however, that the proposed budget still puts the schools $800,000 behind where they need to be for the upcoming year. He said he is asking the Board to increase the per pupil funding up to $302. Bryan Giemza said he appreciated the Board's efforts to juggle all of the requested needs. He said to make education come first. He said the Board of County Commissioners is the only hope. He said the schools are trying to get back to where they once were prior to the cuts that have occurred in the past years. He said he hoped the Board would consider fully funding the CHCCS. Susan Levy said she is the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity and the Chair of the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition. She said she appreciated the recommended inclusion of CIP funding for affordable housing. She thanked the Board for supporting Habitat's impact fee reimbursement last week. She said the funding for affordable housing at the Federal level is not good, and she thanked the Board for filling in the gaps. She also expressed support for the proposed position in Housing Department. Elizabeth Welsby said she has been a resident of Chapel Hill for 28 years and is here to request that the Board fully fund the CHCCS budget request. Rebecca Poellot said she is the speaking on behalf of McDougle Elementary School and is asking the Board to fully fund the CHCCS budget request of$302 per pupil. She felt compelled to come here tonight because of a memo that circulated about the loss of$800,000 if the schools are not fully funded. Julie Siler said she and her husband were recruited by the UNC Health system and the CHCCS were the entire reason that Chapel Hill was their location of choice. She asked the Board to fully fund the CHCCS budget request. Laura Henderson said she wanted to thank the Board for their support and to ask them to fully fund the CHCCS, especially at-risk kids who will struggle with the loss of teacher assistants. PUBLIC COMMENT FROM EMAILS: • Dear Board of Orange County Commissioners: I am writing to thank you for your continued support of the schools in our community - and at the same time to ask you to consider meeting the budget request submitted by the CHCCS District Administration and CHCCS Board of Education, which asks for an additional $302 per child. I am a parent of an elementary school aged child in the District, and I am a parent member of the School Improvement Team at Glenwood Elementary. I see first hand the dedication of our teachers and administrators in the district. Thanks to your long term support for education in our community, we are fortunate to have excellent schools, and committed teachers - but there is still great need in the District. I hate that we need to ask you each year to provide additional funding to make up a shortfall that is driven by - engineered by - Raleigh, but the reality is that by giving teachers a much-needed raise, it will create a shortfall for other essential needs in the classroom - and our teachers and children will suffer the consequences.