Agenda - 10-19-2004-9b - Laserfiche WebLink

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ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: October 19, 2004 Action Agenda , Item No. -_~ SUBJECT: Agreement with Robert Segal, CPA, for School Efficiency Study DEPARTMENT: County Manager PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Proposed Agreement Rod Visser, ext 2300 TELEPHONE NUMBERS: Hillsborough 732-8181 Chapel Hill 968-4501 Durham 688-7331 Mebane 336-227-2031 PURPOSE: To consider approving an agreement with the firm of Robert Segal, CPA, to carry out an examination of opportunities for achieving budgetary efficiencies in the operations of Orange County and the two school systems, BACKGROUND: In Fall 2003, during the discussions on the "Analysis of Potential Impacts Resulting from a Possible Merger of the Orange County Schools and the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools", the Board of Commissioners expressed the desire to pursue three separate tiers of analysis and discussion prior to undertaking any further decisions related to possible school merger or funding equity, The first of these, school collaboration, has been the subject of an ongoing series of facilitated meetings since early 2004 involving leaders of the County and both school systems, The second initiative, an "educational excellence" assessment, is underway and is being conducted under a contract between the County and the University of North Carolina's School of Education, The third approach, an examination of possible measures that bath school systems might pursue to increase operational efficiency, has been the focus of recent discussion between the County Commissioners and the two Boards of Education, At the September 27, 2004 joint work session of the three governing boards, there was discussion and general agreement that it would be beneficial to retain the services of the Robert Segal CPA firm to examine County and school finance records to determine if additional savings could be achieved, As was reported at the BOCC's regular meeting on September 21, 2004, the County and both school systems have taken a number of significant steps in recent years to enhance revenue collection and to reduce expenditures through more advantageous contracting and spending approaches. The Segal firm was engaged several years ago by all three governing boards for revenue enhancement/expense reduction analysis, and succeeded in producing hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and additional revenue for all three entities,