In what was called an anticlimactic ending by Orange County commissioner Mark Dorosin, the Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the county’s 2016-2017 fiscal budget.
In recent months the most controversial issue has been school funding after Orange County Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools asked for increased funding to raise teacher pay.
“We were able to get $2.9 million extra,” Dorosin said. “I really appreciated, despite some of (the commissioner’s) hesitancy, the willingness to look at the fund balance.”
The per-pupil increase for the school districts was $279.10 to bring the total to $3,868.
This represents the second-highest in 30 years, however it will not reach the total of $4.5 million dollars extra CHCCS has already committed to paying its teachers for next year.
The district could have been much further from that number, if not for budget meeting last Thursday.
“Thursday night the board added an additional, little over $2.9 million to the schools and that added $146 per pupil,” said Paul Laughton from the Orange County Finance Department.
The revenue budget will be nearly $216 million, which goes towards funding everything from schools to police and fire departments to non-profits.
The commissioners also unanimously approved a five-year Capital Investment Plan.
This plan is nearly $70 million in total and provides funding for the Southern Branch Library and other major projects.
Board chairman Earl McKee congratulated the county staff on a job well done for this budget.
“This is the culmination of quite an effort,” he said. “Not only on our part, attending a lot of meetings and digesting a lot of information, but particularly on the part of staff, who will begin working on next year’s budget.”
The board will have its next regular meeting in September.
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