Addressing the Orange County Board of Commissioners for the first time since the 2016-2017 fiscal budget was proposed, chair of the Orange County Schools Board of Education Donna Coffee expressed her displeasure with the current plan for school funding.

“I liken the recommended budget to things going on in Raleigh these days,” she said. “It’s as complicated as it can be, it gives folks as little time as possible to  understand it and analyze it and very little time for discussion. With the drop of a gavel we’re afraid it’s going to be approved.”

Both Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have asked the county for additional funding to increase teacher pay.

The proposed budget leaves Orange County Schools an additional $1 million, which is $700,000 short of what was requested.

CHCCS would get an additional $1.6 million, nearly $3 million short of what it asked for.

While the commissioners have also relieved schools of other costs in an attempt to ease the burden on the districts, CHCCS Board of Education chairman James Barrett said his district needed to raise the supplement to remain competitive during the recruiting season.

“If we’re not competitive, it’s a nonstarter for the teachers,” he said. “There may not be an impact today, but it’s going to be an impact next year if we don’t have the best quality teachers.”

No matter the outcome of next year’s fiscal budget, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools has already committed to paying an additional $4.5 million to increase pay for its teachers.

Over the course of two public hearings on the issue, a number of teachers, parents and students have advocated for full funding.

“We could do it this year,” commissioner Mia Burroughs said. “There’s ways and it isn’t even five cents on the tax rate. So we don’t have to leave the parents disappointed and it isn’t really about the parents and their disappointment anyway. It’s about the teachers with the second jobs. It’s about the kids.”

Multiple commissioners called for a change in the way the budget process is done.

Commissioner Barry Jacobs said in his 20 years on the board he rarely sees a budget that doesn’t become hostile.

“I also think it’s set up, though no fault of anybody’s to be way too confrontational,” Jacobs said. “And way too stilted and way too inflexible.”

The commissioners will continue to work on the budget until their meeting June 21, when it will be approved.

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