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

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111 ,'7 seem to do this in increments of 10 months. On the surface, I think it's really intriguing, but I think we need to have the staff, the Manager, and the Attorney look at this thing in every possible way, to do the kind of analysis, Geof that you did this evening. This is the first time in all the years I've been on the Board that we've had explained to us what the statutes say we could do if we wanted to strictly manage school expenditures. And I don't want to get into the micromanagement of school budgets. That's the last thing I'm interested in doing. However, if it's a legal option we have, I think we need to know all the legal options we have, I think Commissioner Carey has captured very carefully the sentiment of people on both sides of the issue through all of these hours and hours of public hearings that we've had.. You've captured that spirit. But I've also learned over the years that our Attorney has an amazing ability, tonight was the first time I've ever heard him say that it was his opinion on something, that you really couldn't base it on legalese. I found that intriguing, you're starting to worry me when you say things like that. But I think, Commissioners, this leads very interestingly into, and I'll just take a quick snapshot of this Barry, if you would indulge me, on the next two units we're looking at, the school efficiency study. It says very clearly, "The Board of Commissioners have discussed the desirability of providing assurance to the public and the Commissioners that County appropriations for public education are being well and efficiently expended, particularly before any commitments are made to providing additional financial resources to the schools for a potential merger, supplemental district tax, or the like." I think if we're going to give some credence, and I'm willing to give this my initial, "I like this." But I want it coupled very closely to the school efficiency study to guarantee the public that we're optimizing opportunities for expenditures to the maximum, and also have a common terminology. I don't want to spend six months having a debate over, "Is this a district tax? Is this a supplemental tax? What kind of tax is this ?" We're the ones who have an opportunity to define exactly what this creature is that we're helping give birth to here.. So, on the surface, I want to say to Moses I like what you've got here, but I think we need to have all the analysis we can get from our own staff on what's involved here. Assuming there's a primary in May, which is a big assumption right now based on whichever superior court judge is going to rule on the latest redistricting proposal from the legislature. There may not be a primary in May. There may be one in June, July, August, or as we know what happened a year and a half ago, some other month.. Commissioner Gordon: I just wanted to clarify what I was trying to articulate before. It is written down here in the proposal that what you do is that you set the countywide supplemental tax that's been approved by the voters. Then if you look at 2b on the Steps Toward Funding Equity, my proposal. Then you adjust the city tax rate downward to compensate for the increase in the countywide tax increase. The only thing I said, and this gets at Moses' point that perhaps there would be an increase in funding to the Chapel Hill schools, is that the schools would be held harmless, not just in the narrow sense, but the total funding to the district would increase as appropriate to address demonstrated unmet needs. So if you set a countywide supplemental tax at the four cents, you would be giving $1.5 million more to the Orange County schools. You would lower the district tax. Maybe not so much that you would wipe out the entire amount that might accrue. But you would basically not be giving much if any increase to the Chapel Hill schools through this mechanism, so that the 68 -32 split that John Link was talking about does raise with the four cents if we levy that the first year. $1.5 million goes to the Orange County schools, and we'd have to figure out what would go to the Chapel Hill schools, but they certainly wouldn't get $2.5 million out of this because we would lower the district or1