Minutes 05-10-2022 Budget Public Hearing and Work Session

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11 school teacher, but she is looking at a job as a curriculum writer that will pay $20,000 more as a starting salary than what she makes now with her masters and it has paid maternity leave. She said teachers are leaving so they can afford to live and have families. She said teachers are leaving due to being disrespected, injured, and insulted, and for their own safety and sanity. She said teachers are leaving quicker than they can be replaced and children will suffer. She said a fully funded budget is an attempt to gain back respect and make it possible for teachers to live and continue to work in their chosen profession. Laura Jensen, Clerk to the Board, read the following comment emailed to the Board of Commissioners from Erskine Alvis at 3:38 PM: "Thank you for the privilege to address you tonight via letter. I write you today as I am ill, and I cannot attend the Board of County Commissioners meeting tonight to hear comments for and against the budget for the County's upcoming fiscal year. If I was there, then I would certainly offer my comments below in person. I write you in the most vigorous language possible. I ask you to approve the budget for the Chapel Hill Carrboro City School system and the Orange County Schools. I ask you to do this without further delay and to do this without further delay. These two districts represent the best in elementary, secondary, and community education in North Carolina. In many ways, they serve as a model of education and educational leadership for so many in other parts of our country. We need this clarity now more than ever as we are a people more divided than we have been in 150 years since the horrors of the American Civil War. In Orange County, North Carolina, we are a beacon of hope. We are all so fortunate to live here. I am a retired 22-year U.S. Navy Chaplain. I deployed from Japan to Afghanistan. deployed to war. I have seen the Hell of what human beings can create for each other. I have seen the horror of inhumanity. And yet, it was my privilege to be in military service to our country. It was my honor. For the past 3 months, I have had the privilege to serve as a long-term substitute teacher for the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. It is a PRIVILEGE to serve. It is my honor. Like my military service, I have already experienced the joys and the sorrows of humanity. In my role, I have seen the hope, the clarity, and the care mixed with and incredible mix of competence and commitment by our educators — be they in the classroom or elsewhere — as they work so hard to do so much for so many. I include ALL staff members in the term educators. This includes EVERYONE who works for the school system and in the school buildings proper and within the system. They not only serve our students by their high degree of professionalism, but they also serve our students' families, they serve our community, and most importantly, they serve what kind of future our country needs and will have long after all of us are gone from where we are now. To quote the late U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Chuck Yeager from about the time that he broke the sound barrier in 1947, "No bucks. No Buck Rogers." This budget represents the clarity of such thinking. I offer the following examples of why you need to approve this budget as presented in its entirety. First, there was the young student from a foreign land who is an immigrant. She struggles with English. When I covered the class for her teacher one day, she asked me if she had completed the work properly. Via email, I checked with her teacher. He contacted me. She has done it beautifully. When I shared his affirmation of her with her, she beamed in an ear-to-ear smile. She works so hard. She just wants to be part of the American Dream. Second, there was the young student that queried me about military service when he learned of mine. He wanted to know what it was like. He wanted to know if I was ever scared. I told him, "Of course I was scared. We all were. The main thing is if you are honest with