Agenda - 06-17-1987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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S TI1 4/EwT 0919E 41Y S.4 01AdeS G 4-/747 AWG. School Merger and associated issues have been studied through the efforts of the School Merger Task Force. The report of that Task Force recommended that merger not be pursued at this time. It is my sense that the county community and all three Boards agree with that conclusion. Neither do I sense that either the community nor any Board wants to pursue merger unless and until the General Assembly refuses any longer to fund more than one system in a county. The costs of funding a separate school system locally could not be computed meaningfully, in terms of the district tax increase that would be needed in dollars, until we had all budget figures available for the year in which the merger would take place. Any movement towards equity that we make however, in the years until we may be faced with that computation, WOULD DECREASE the necessary rise in the district tax needed to support that system separately. Movement towards equity supports movement away from the need for merger, not towards it. The Merger Task Force did, however, in the strongest possible terms, ask us to address some other issues -- among them equalizing the funding in the two school systems in the terms of long standing state funding policy. The appropriate time to address financial policy is during the budget process, a statement I made on accepting the report. I also in public sesssion asked the manager to address alternatives we might adopt to move us in the direction of equity in the budget document. At various times our seriosness in this followup was discus ith the press and it has been mentioned in conversation with variooards members. It has not been my intention as spokesone of the Board to hide my or any other Commissioner's concern about equity issues; I have not been satisfied either that we have caught your attention. Rather than presenting alternatives whereby we might begin to move toward equity the manager presented two methods, one of which -- a supplemental tax voted by the taxpayers in the Orange County Scool District -- is flawed and concerns no seed of equity. It does, however, point out the kernel of the commissioner's dilemma. In a county with one system, the voters may vote a supplemental tax, that tax is levied on the total tax base, and is used to fund the educational needs of students -- NO MATTER HOW THE STUDENTS ARE DISTRIBUTED and NO MATTER HOW THE TAX BASE IS DISTRIBUTED. I believe strongly that IF county citizens had that choice, a county-wide supplement would be voted in overwhelmingly and that that vote would be based on voters strong agreement that teachers and classified employees should be supported generously. We have been listening. Our taxpayers do NOT have THAT OPTION. In our two systems APPROXIMATELY HALF THE STUDENTS LIVE IN EACH SYSTEM BUT TWO-THIRDS OF THE TAIBASE IS IN ONE SYSTEM. Every penny that city school district taxpayers pay extra for half the county students raises $209,000; a similar district one cent tax for the Orange county schools would raise only $104,500 for half the county students. There is no equity in THAT. The disparity increases yearly; the Task Force is correct; it needs our attention.