Orange County Commissioners to Adopt Recommended Budget for New Fiscal Year

The Orange County Board of Commissioners will convene this evening to vote on spending nearly $220 million over the course of the next fiscal year.

That figure represents the estimated expenditures in a proposed budget recommended by Orange County Manager Bonnie Hammersley for board member approval.

Those expenditures were briefed to board members last week by Assistant County Manager Paul Laughton, who offered an itemized look at educational spending.

“Current expense appropriation for local school districts total $80,745,847, and equates to a per-pupil allocation of $3,991,” he cited.

“The current expense appropriation for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is $48,530,521; the current expense appropriation for Orange County [Schools] is $32,215,326.”

Laughton also expounded on budgetary provisions that would allow for law enforcement officers and professional nurses to be present in schools throughout the county.

“Additional net county funding for local school districts totals $5,454,000; number one of that is school resource officers and school health nurses contracts,” he relayed.

“Total appropriation of $3,354,000 to cover the cost of school resource officers in every middle and high school and a school health nurse in every elementary, middle and high school in both school systems.”

A special district tax that supports Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools would also be lowered under the recommended budget to 20.08 cents per $100 in property value.

Board Chair Mark Dorosin endorsed that adjustment as a way to lower taxes in the county while reducing funding disparities between its school districts.

“I think it’s imperative that we work to reduce the funding disparities between Orange County Schools and [Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools],” he stated.

“The way to to that is to — and I’ve said this before in other contexts that I am not in favor of raising that tax; if we have to raise taxes, I’m always in favor of the ad valorem — this is an opportunity to reduce that disparity by cutting that one.”

Additional proposed adjustments include a reduction in the property tax rate by four cents, which translates to 83 cents being collected by the county per $100 in property value.

With these adjustments having already been approved by board members during work sessions, the proposed budget stands to be adopted tonight without debate.