Agenda - 02-12-2004-6 - Laserfiche WebLink

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budgeting here in Orange County between the two school systems or among the two school systems? Can we talk about what programming is now on par between the two school systems? And I'm talking about instructional programming, is not. With all due respect to our memorandum of understanding that we've been focusing on in the past, there are a lot of issues that have to be addressed, but I'm looking to Andy Saks to address conflicting values and conflicting beliefs, and conflicting this or that, and talking about commitment. I mean, if you don't' come to the table, you're not committed.. I would rather us have some tangible areas that we can say we're going to collaborate, that is, work together on, whatever term you're going to use. And they're real items — there's the budget, there's programming, how you work together on co- location of certain functions. Is that the areas the Board wants us to pursue? Because I'm trying to be as definitive as possible. Chair Jacobs: Yes. We've given some examples, but you've just given some other examples. Perhaps we can finally resolve the issue of what's a mandate, that would be nice. John Link: That's why I brought up the whole subject of budgeting„ This red sheet, which is the item that was described by the County Attorney. We all as County Managers, and Superintendents, and County Commissioners are instructed in this process when we go to the Institute of Government. So we all know what we could do in terms of pursuing funding by project or by program. There has been no county in this State that has been successful with pursuing that in terms of having a positive outcome between the school boards and the County Commissioners. It usually results in acrimonious outcomes, and it's not productive. So when we talk about the budget process, can we finally agree and collaborate on what we mean by mandates? Can we finally agree and collaborate on what we mean by expansion items in the budget? And can we finally agree on the fact that the County Commissioners don't fund Spanish teachers. However, when everyone comes to a County Commission public hearing, and they say, "You haven't funded Spanish teachers, Commissioners." I can speak as the Manager; it makes me want to fund Spanish teachers by line item. We're in that paradigm where that's the process in which we work with the budget proposals and presentations. Can't Orange County do a better job than we're doing in that kind of process? So those are the kind of things I'd like to bring to the superintendents and hopefully we can come back with something tangible that we can all agree as a body of work to collaborate on. Chair Jacobs: And we'd ask you to at least invite Mr Saks to some of those meetings, even if we haven't officially hired him. Commissioner Carey: Are we finished with the discussion on collaboration? Chair Jacobs: It would appear so. Commissioner Carey: Like I said earlier, the amendment that I would like to make on my proposal is not necessarily inconsistent with collaboration, because I've been a supporter of collaboration for many years, it just hasn't worked to the extent that I'd like to see it work and think it should work. And if the process that we have just charted a course for works, that's fine, and it may be needed. One of the scenarios that I plan to ask the Board to consider tonight ...... Tm not giving up, I haven't given up, and I want the public to know that I haven't given up on my goal of trying to move this County in the direction of merging the two school systems so that we can not only benefit from the ultimate collaboration but also have potential in the future of saving some money on school capital construction that we will need to save in order to address important capital needs in the future. I think that's very important, and I think that merger is the only way we're going to achieve that goal. As long as we've got two separate school systems that are unequally funded, we're not going to as