7-a - Report on the Orange County Tax Equity Study

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CCM Economics, LLC Orange County Tax Equity Page 33 primarily on the 55 to 53 percent of households who pay federal income taxes. Since Orange County, and Chapel Hill in particular, are relatively wealthy compared to the average US household, this inequity is especially pronounced. An alternative method of determining benefits was done via a public use survey. Orange County residents were asked about their use of several county provided facilities including the different libraries, parks, health centers, and senior centers located in the county as well as the public transportation, recycling, and Wi-Fi. There were a total of 478 responses with 95% of the respondents being from Orange County. Table 6 breaks out the residency status of respondents. Table 6. Residences of Respondents Municipality Percent Carrboro city limits 8.8% Chapel Hill city limits (as part of Orange County) 19.2% Durham city limits (as part of Orange County) 1.3% Hillsborough city limits 20.1% Mebane city limits (as part of Orange County) 2.5% Unincorporated area, but within Orange County 43.1% I do not reside in Orange County, North Carolina 5.0% In general, there a somewhat widespread and fairly equal use of most county provided services. This is illustrated in Table 7 which outlines the percentage of respondents indicating usage of the different categories of county provided services such as parks, library facilities, senior citizen centers, health centers, recycling, transportation services, and Wi-Fi. The general category is noted in bold and italics and is centered and the general category usage statistic is the average level of usage for all facilities in that category. For example, 9 out of 10 Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents use the Chapel Hill branch of the library, but only one out of four residents from Mebane use these library facilities. Residents of Mebane prefer to use the Main Library where 75% of them report using this facility. 70