Commissioners, schools consider efficiency study

Monday's joint meeting of the Orange County Board of Commissioners and the two county school boards could mark the next step in discussions about educational inequality, provided that a study suggested by commissioners gets off the ground.

The commissioners discussed Tuesday night hiring the Robert S. Segal accounting firm to conduct a school efficiency study to look at the operations of both school systems.

The move will set the course for further action in an ongoing effort to resolve funding discrepancies between city and county schools.

"We plan to use the efficiency study to determine whether we're being good stewards of the taxpayers' money," explained Steve Scroggs, assistant superintendent for support services for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

At their Monday meeting, the group will discuss the parameters of the efficiency study.

Commissioners plan to combine the results of the study with findings from committees on educational excellence and school collaboration to determine a solution to the problem of funding inequality, an issue that provoked talks of merging the school systems last year.

"Both school systems have done a great deal of examination," Scroggs said. "The next step is agreement on what areas of efficiency to look at separately and jointly."

Commissioner Moses Carey Jr. said the two systems will have quite a bit of input into which items will be included in the study before the proposal is written.

"It's commission-initiated, but we want support from the schools," said Carey, who first proposed the merger last year.

Anne D'Annunzio, spokeswoman for the county schools, said the system favors that cooperation. "Anything to learn from each other and enhance opportunities."

If the study is conducted, the results will be used along with the findings of two committees to determine the proper course of action.

The work group on educational excellence focuses on academics in both school systems and is working with the School of Public Education at UNC to see how the schools can conduct joint programming.

The group focused on collaboration and comprises the commissioners and the chairmen and vice chairmen of both school systems. Barry Jacobs, chairman of the Board of Commissioners, said it is looking into how the schools can save money through coordination.

Jacobs said commissioners hope to review the results of the work group on educational excellence, as well as the school efficiency study, at their first meeting in December.

Still, Donna Dean, county budget director, said that collaboration between the two school systems could save money, but that it might not prevent the need for a merger.

And though Carey declined to speculate on actions the commissioners will take after the results of the studies are in, Jacobs said, a merger, while not the only solution, is "still an option to some people."

"I've always supported collaboration," said Jacobs. "I don't think we've fully mined that vein."

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