Agenda - 06-12-2008 - 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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HAPEL HILL- ARRBORO TO: Laura Blackmon Orange County Manager FROM: ~ Neil Pedersen Superintendent RE: 2008-09 Operating Budget Request Date: June 10, 2008 We look forward to further discussion on our budget request at the County Commissioners' work session on Thursday, June 12~'. As you know, even though your recommendation was to provide approximately $1.5 million less than the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools' request, I have publicly taken the position that this is our fair share of the reductions that must be made in the budget requests that have been submitted. We believe that largely due to a grant that has recently been increased and renewed for immigrant education, we can cope with such a reduction without too much pain. A reduction of more than $1.5 million would most likely jeopardize current positions and/or services. I do want to bring to your attention that we have growing concerns about some inflationary costs. We all know what has happened to the cost of fuel and food in the past few months. OWASA is having a public hearing on June 12~' as well at which a 25% increase in water and sewer rates will be considered. Progress Energy has proposed a 16% increase in electricity rates. This month we reimbursed the Orange County Schools approximately $81,000 for overruns in their fuel allocation attributable to our school buses. We can expect this figure to be even higher next year, and there are no funds in our budget request to cover this. Although we did increase our budget for water/sewer by 25%, we only increased the other utilities by 7%. We increased our subsidy to Child Nutrition Services by only the amount that we project to run short this year. Even though we will raise lunch prices by another 10 cents next year, it is quite likely that we will run in the red even more than this year. We did not budget for higher gasoline prices, largely because the home-to- school transportation operation falls under the Orange County Schools. Clearly, we will receive a similar or larger request for reimbursement next year. Although we do not expect the County to provide more funding than what we requested in light of these recent developments, we would want the County Commissioners to recognize that shortfalls in these areas are virtually certain and will have to be defrayed by making reductions elsewhere in our budget.