By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
More than 40 people voiced their opinions on the county manager’s proposed 2010-11 budget at a public hearing before the Orange County Board of Commissioners in Chapel Hill on Tuesday, many of them in favor of raising taxes to fully fund the school boards’ requests.
County Manager Frank Clifton’s $174.9 million budget includes no increase in the property-tax rate and across-the-board cuts to allocations to county departments and services, nonprofit agencies and both school districts.
The proposed budget represents a $2.7 million decrease from the $177.6 million 2009-10 budget and an $8.9 million decrease from the 2009-10 amended budget. The budget maintains the current ad valorem tax rate of 85.8 cents per $100 of valuation. The proposal also recommends no increase in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools special district-tax rate.
Parents, teachers and other school advocates wore red in support of fully funding the schools.
Recommended funding for both school districts totals about $84.1 million, or 48.1 percent of the general fund budget, and represents a $1.3 million decrease from 2009-10 funding. However, the funding maintains the per-pupil allocation of $3,096, with most of the cuts to long-range and pay-as-you-go capital. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools had requested a $62 per-pupil increase, while Orange County Schools requested no increase to the per-pupil rate.
Several speakers asked the board not to reduce the school’s capital budget, saying that older schools have pressing capital needs that would have to be funded regardless of the capital budget.
“We need the capital budget to keep our children safe and healthy while at school,†said Elizabeth Welsby, the parent co-chair of the Estes Hills Elementary School Improvement Team. She pointed out that older schools, such as Estes Hills, have leaky roofs, parking lots that flood and bathroom stalls without doors.
“I would welcome and support any tax increase,†said Catharine Cummer, the mother of a third-grader and a rising kindergartner at Estes Hills. “The schools are really the engine of the growth in the county, and we need to do everything we can to maintain funding to allow schools to do their jobs.â€
Several parents spoke regarding specific programs that could be cut if the schools did not receive full funding, including the middle school dual-language program.
“Dual language is one of the reasons why we moved here to Chapel Hill,†said Matt Zemon, the father of a first-grader and a kindergartner in the dual-language program. “Unlike other proposed cuts, if the middle school program is taken away, they’re going to lose their fluency.â€
Morgan Alderman, a seventh-grader in the Chinese-English dual-language program, spoke to the board in both English and Chinese.
“If I didn’t continue in middle school, I think I would’ve forgotten all of my Chinese,†she said. “I think if we keep funding for dual language, kids will get better jobs because they’ll be more diverse, and it sets us apart.â€
Representatives from Triangle Land Conservancy, county libraries, the Board of Health, the Arts Commission and other organizations also plead with the commissioners to fund their organizations.
Several county residents spoke regarding the elimination of funding for the Child Care Services Association, a nonprofit organization that helps match families with child-care providers. The county provided CCSA with $36,571 for 2009-10, and the organization requested $40,675 for 2010-11. The county manager’s recommended budget includes no funding for CCSA.
Linda Chappel, chair of CCSA’s board of directors, said the organization was told that it did not receive funding because it duplicated services provided by the county’s Department of Social Services.
However, Chappel said the organization provided services for 675 families with 691 children last year, and more than 100 of those families said they were referred to CCSA by DSS.
The board is scheduled to review the proposed budget at a number of work sessions over the next month, with final budget approval by June 15.