The Orange County Board of County Commissioners considered 37 amendments to the town manager’s recommended budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year at its meeting on Tuesday, June 11. Six of those amendments focused on funding education in the county and only one passed.
Orange County is one of only a few counties in North Carolina with more than one public school district. This means that local funds must be split between the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district and the Orange County Schools district.
In order to fund the extensive budgets both school districts proposed to the county in April, commissioners worked to find places to raise money. The BOCC plans to only fund part of the proposed CHCCS continuation budget to cover normal operations and the state’s anticipated salary and benefit increases.
“I am exceedingly disappointed that they did not fund our continuation budget and I hope this is not an indication of departing from community values of supporting education and making it a top priority,” CHCCS Board of Education chair Joal Broun said.
Commissioners Mark Dorosin and Jamezetta Bedford each sponsored separate amendments to the 2019-20 budget that hoped to find funding for education.
Dorosin sponsored amendments three, four, five and six. His amendments are considered in conjunction with one another.
Amendment three would have decreased the CHCCS special district tax by one cent to address the funding inequity in the two school systems.
“This amendment is designed to accomplish two primary goals,” Dorosin said. “… One is to maintain the high level of education funding that we provide in the county, and the second is to try to address the funding inequities and distribute educational opportunities and resources more equitably throughout the county.”
Had amendment three passed, amendment four specified the allocation of district tax funds to CHCCS that would be decreased.