Agenda - 06-21-2022; 8-a - Minutes

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41 1 Travis Myren said there are a lot of other capital funds available in the CIP and this is the 2 amount of cash that could be fit into the operating budget model. 3 Commissioner McKee asked if the $2 million drop-in debt service would account to the 4 below the 48.1%. 5 Travis Myren said most of it. 6 Commissioner McKee said this is a generalized conversation over the past 15 years that 7 they want to try to hit. He said they have met or exceeded in all but 1 year since 2008-2009. He 8 said on several occasions it has exceeded the 50%. He said that if they are talking about 9 increasing to hit the target then next year should they discuss decreasing. 10 Chair Price said that seeing that it had been exceeded other times. She said that this 11 year, coming out of the pandemic, with all of the needs that had been identified, it seems there 12 is a greater need. She said she is not saying they must hit the target. 13 Commissioner McKee said it would require another penny on the tax rate. 14 Chair Price said yes, or they could look at other options. 15 Commissioner Greene said both numbers are flexible. She said they are always in flux. 16 She said that there is pressure from all sides and the schools, and the community have needs. 17 She said that 48% is not a fixed percentage. 18 Chair Price said understands and she just wanted to get clarity and did not want to 19 suggest anything. She said in the past when they have gone above then that money was added 20 after the fact. 21 Commissioner Richards said she had heard so much about it on Tuesday night and 22 wanted to understand it better. She said that the chart showed the targets, and she understands 23 that the whole budget, none of it is fixed. 24 Commissioner McKee said they heard a lot about other counties allocating a greater 25 percentage of their budget to schools and he speculates that is Wake County due to their high 26 rate of growth. He said that per student, they are below Orange County. He said the comments 27 indicated that Wake County was giving more. 28 Commissioner Hamilton said she is not a fan of an arbitrary target. She said they need 29 to be looking at the needs of the schools. She said investing in children is the most important 30 thing they can do. She said the county has been spending a lot of money dealing with the social 31 inequities later in life but have not done an adequate job as a society to prevent that. She said 32 investment needs to be at the beginning. She said that current numbers targeted a 3% increase 33 to schools, but general funds have increased 7%. She said that they are looking at a better 34 economic situation and got through the pandemic better than expected. She said that they 35 should think about what the needs are now, and they need to focus on what they need to do 36 now and set priorities. She said really hard choices need to be made but those should not be 37 made on the backs of children. 38 Commissioner Greene said she is concerned that they are being compared to Wake 39 County and she speculates that so much of Wake County is urban. She said that is not a good 40 comparison to Orange County. 41 Chair Price said that in the past, they have used half of their budget for schools. She 42 said they should prioritize children and examine what would need to be sacrificed to reduce 43 expenditures. 44 Commissioner Fowler asked if county level recommendations were reviewed based on 45 what the departments requested or if they set a 3% increase for them. 46 Travis Myren said the budgets come in department specific and are examined on a 47 case-by-case basis by policy. He said that he would need to look at the percentage increase in 48 county department spending. He said the 3% started with what do we want to give employees. 49 Commissioner Fowler said if the county got a revenue increase of 7%, and they are only 50 putting 3% in for the schools, then it means that some are getting more than 7%.