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24 <br /> <br />Commissioner Greene said if the mandatory language is removed, but the CAPS are <br />still present, she would still want the towns to be a party to it, and to be expected to consult the <br />SAPFO when dealing with a new development to understand the practical import of any new <br />development. <br />Commissioner Dorosin referred to the “must” language and spoke of a hypothetical <br />development that would bring 100 new students, pushing the CHCCS over capacity, and <br />CHCCS denies the development, and the developer sues to the district, and gets permit to build <br />the school. He asked if anyone has the authority to force the County to build a school. <br />John Roberts said this has never unfolded before, but a scenario would be that a <br />developer needs a SAPFO from the school district in order to build a subdivision, and if that is <br />not obtained, the subdivision will not be approved by the local planning department. He said, <br />from there, it will end up in litigation and may include the school systems, but the denial is <br />coming from the Towns or County. He said the County would not have to build a school, but <br />someone would get sued. <br />Commissioner Dorosin said many counties have crowded schools, and are not required <br />to build schools. He suggested moving forward with option 1 and drafting something to look at <br />existing kids and those on waiting list; and while this is being drafted they reach out to the <br />towns and start the conversation. He said it would be helpful to have something to show the <br />other parties with a couple of options. <br />Commissioner Greene said the weight is with the County. <br /> <br /> <br />4. School Funding Equity between School Districts in Orange County <br /> <br />BACKGROUND: <br />This agenda item is in response to a petition by a Board member. In North Carolina, each <br />county is responsible for supplementing state and federal appropriations to public education. <br />State law requires the County to allocate current expense or operating funding to each school <br />system based on an equal per pupil amount. In addition to current expense funding, counties <br />provide funds to each system for recurring and long range capital projects. <br />These capital expenses are not required to be allocated on a per pupil basis. <br /> <br />The FY2019-20 budget provides $4,352.25 per student for each of the 20,408 students in the <br />two school systems. The Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools District was allocated approximately <br />$53.4 million in current expense funding based on an enrollment of 12,274 students. The <br />Orange County Schools District was allocated approximately $35.4 million in current expense <br />funding based on an enrollment of 8,134 students. <br /> <br />State law also allows Local Education Agencies (LEA) to levy special district taxes. District <br />taxes must be approved by referendum. Once the tax is approved, the Board of County <br />Commissioners formally approves the special district tax rate each year. Attachment A shows <br />the counties in the state that levy taxes for more than one school district and the special district <br />tax rates, if any, authorized in each of those Districts. The most recent data available from the <br />Department of Public Instruction is from 2017-18. <br /> <br />The Special District Taxes are only levied within the District’s boundary. In FY2019-20, Chapel <br />Hill Carrboro City Schools maintained a special district tax rate of 20.18 cents per $100 <br />assessed value. For this fiscal year, the special district tax is estimated to generate an <br />additional $1,977 per student or a total of $24,267,972. This additional per pupil funding