Minutes-05-11-2023-Budget Work Session

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15 Chair Bedford said she thought that 5 or 6 years ago Orange County was the only county funding charter schools, but now some other counties are doing the same. Travis Myren said yes, and he was able to find that Wake County changed its policy in 2018. Chair Bedford said it's not required for the county to provide the per pupil allocation for charter school students, but it's important to do because they are also Orange County students. Travis Myren said it is also important because otherwise the school system's current expense budget would have to be used to fund the charter students, and then the per pupil allocation for traditional public school students would drop significantly. Vice-Chair McKee asked if counties are required to fund charter students. Chair Bedford said no, but the school districts are required to pass along the per pupil allocation for each charter school student. She said years ago, Orange County recognized that without including the per pupil funding for charter students in the funding for each school district, the per pupil amount for traditional public school students would drop. Vice-Chair McKee asked in a scenario where a school system has 1000 students and 100 went to charter schools, how many of those students does a county have to fund. Chair Bedford and Travis Myren said 900 students. Vice-Chair McKee said he doesn't want the implication to be that some other counties are not funding charter students, when the funding is still from the county's allocation of funding to the school system. Travis Myren reiterated that the amount that Orange County provides to school districts as part of their current expense budgets includes the amount the school districts then have to provide to the charter schools. Commissioner Fowler said she read it is state law that the two districts have to be funded the way they are for operating expenses, but not capital expenses. She asked if it makes sense to split the capital funding based on the percentage of budgeted students when the charter school students included in this number are not in the traditional public school buildings and the school districts do not have to pass capital money onto charter schools. Travis Myren said the Board has chosen to do it that way in the past, but it doesn't have to be done that way. Chair Bedford said initially there weren't very many charter students and the argument was that even if 25 students left, buildings still have a lot of fixed costs, so it made sense to do it this way. Commissioner Hamilton said part of the work of the Capital Needs Work Group may be to revisit this concept. She said there are other criteria that can be used to determine the best use of capital dollars given the great capital needs in both school districts. Chair Bedford said it would be politically unfavorable to give all the capital money to one of the school districts and it would also be hard to get people to vote for a bond if they know their schools are getting nothing. She said she does agree that the Board should look at what the consultant recommends and having a plan where the funding may ultimately balance out over time would be good. Commissioner Hamilton said part of the Board's job would be to educate the public about the plan and how the funding decisions are being made. Commissioner Fowler said she thinks this should be discussed at some point, and it's great for the Capital Needs Work Group to make a recommendation. Vice-Chair McKee said at some point, state law may change and the county may be required to fund capital expenses for charter schools.