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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20090521 APPROVED 8/18/2009 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS BUDGET PUBLIC HEARING May 21, 2009 The Orange County Board of Commissioners met on Thursday May 21, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. at the Central Orange Senior Center (Adjoining the SportsPlex) in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The purpose of this meeting was to hold a public hearing on the County Manager's Recommended 2009-20010 Budget. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Valerie Foushee and Commissioners Alice M. Gordon, Pam Hemminger, Barry Jacobs, Mike Nelson, Bernadette Pelissier, and Steve Yuhasz COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager Laura Blackmon, Assistant County Managers Willie Best and Gwen Harvey and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) 1. Opening Remarks-Chair Foushee PUBLIC CHARGE The Chair dispensed with the reading of the public charge. 2. Presentation of County Manager' Recommended FY 2009-10 Budget (PowerPoint Presentation) A copy of the County Manager' Recommended FY 2009-10 Budget can be found at the following website: http://www.co.orange.nc.us/budget/index.asp County Manager's Recommended 2009-10 Annual Operating Budget Presentation Southern Human Services Center, Chapel Hill Orange County, NC May 19, 2009 Milestones Achieved This Year • Property and sales tax collections remain on target to meet budget • County departments reduced budgets early in year to deal with anticipated State funding reductions and economic downturns • School funding was not reduced as a result of revenue losses o School Construction Impact Fees o Public School Building Funds o Lottery Proceeds • Completed eight new County Facilities o Animal Services facility located in Chapel Hill o Cedar Grove Park located at Northern Human Services Center in Hillsborough o Central Orange Senior Center and expansion of the SportsPlex in Hillsborough o Justice Facility, Main County Library, and Office Building located in downtown Hillsborough o Solid Waste Administration Building located in Chapel Hill o West 10 Park located in Efland/Buckhorn area • Nearing completion of Main County Library and Office Building located in downtown Hillsborough • Adopted the 2030 Comprehensive Plan which updates and expands the scope and policy direction of the 1981 County Land Use Plan Guiding Principles •Meets Board directives •Balances County's operating budget at revenue neutral tax rate •Funds local school districts at 48.1% of the County's General Fund •2001 Commissioner approved funding target for Schools •Allows for full year costs of operating new County facilities •Addresses County priorities such as providing safety net and implementing comprehensive plan Proposed Ad Valorem Tax Rate Effective July 1, 2009 •Recommended tax rate of 85.8 cents per$100 of assessed valuation •This is the rate that produces the same amount of property tax levy as budgeted in current year •Commonly referred to as revenue neutral property tax rate •Current year tax rate is 99.8 cents per$100 assessed valuation •One cent on property tax estimated to generate $1,505,352 How Will Revaluation and Recommended Tax Rate Impact Homeowners? - Example of Tax Bill Comparison Prior to Revaluation After Revaluation (Value Increase of 24%) Value of Property $241,000 $298,840 Tax Rate 0.998 0.858 Equals Tax Bill $2,405 $2,564 Difference $159 Current year Countywide tax rate is 99.8 cents per$100 valuation. Recommended Countywide tax rate effective July 1, 2009 is 85.8 cents per$100 valuation. This recommended rate reflects the County's revenue neutral ad valorem tax rate. $298,840 is the average value of all residential property in Orange County after the 2009 revaluation schedule of values is applied. Proposed Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools District Tax Rate Effective July 1, 2009 •Recommended tax rate of 18.84 cents per$100 of assessed valuation •Represents revenue neutral property tax rate for District •Current year tax rate is 23 cents per$100 assessed valuation •Recommended tax rate will generate $18.7 million •In addition to monies district will receive from Countywide tax •One cent on district tax estimated to generate $993,725 Recommended General Fund Budget •Totals $177.6 million •Decrease of$5.4 million from original current year budget of$183 million •Represents 3 percent decrease from previous year original budget •Budget decreases mean everyone— schools, non-profit agencies, and county departments - receive less money next year than they received this year FY2009-10 General Fund Revenues Recommended Budget Totals $177,589,039 (graph) FY 2009-10 General Fund Appropriations Recommended Budget Totals $177,589,039 (graph) Recommended Funding for Chapel Hill Carrboro City and Orange County Schools •Total General Fund appropriation totals $85.4 million •These monies will fund day-to-day operations, repayment of school related debt, and capital •Appropriation equals 48.1 percent of total General Fund •Reflects $3.1 million decrease from current year General Fund appropriation •Equates to $3,096 per student for each of the 18,898 students in both districts for day-to-day operating funds •Reflects decrease of$104 per student compared to current year per pupil appropriation of $3,200 •In addition, Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools will receive additional $18.7 million from special district tax Annual General Fund Per Pupil Appropriations Based on Historical Averages (graph) Additional Funding for Local Schools •In addition to the $85.4 million for operations, debt and capital, recommended budget allocates $1.7 million to fund non-mandated safety net initiatives for both school districts •School health nurses - $617,782 •School resource officers and social workers for Orange County Schools - $1,072,000 Funded County Initiatives •Funds full year operating costs of new facilities •Examples include parks, senior center, County Library, and Animal Services Facility •Allows for Board priorities •Provides safety net to assist those facing economic challenges such as job loss •Food, shelter and medical services •Covers increased costs of mandates and debt service Funds repayment of School and County related debt •Total debt payments for FY 2009-10 = $25.7 million •Equivalent of 17.1 cents on tax rate •Continues financial support for Orange County Campus of Durham Technical Community College Examples of Recommended Changes in County Services .Library Services .Reduce hours at Main Library in Hillsborough .Close Cedar Grove and Carrboro McDougle Library .Reassign staff from those libraries to new Main Library .Solid Waste Convenience Centers .Reduce hours at all centers .Close Bradshaw Quarry Road center .Other Discontinued Programs .Refugee Health Assessment .HIV Community Testing .Wheels to Work .Recreation programs such as Community Theatre, Jazz and Gospel Festivals, and instructional classes .No employee pay increases recommended .Discontinued 401(k) program and day care match for County employees .No funding recommended for County vehicles or equipment .Organizational Changes .Staff reassignments .Leave vacant positions unfilled for 12 months .Discontinue employment of interns for special projects .Reduced travel, advertising and duplicating .During June 4 and 9 work sessions, Commissioners will discuss operational impacts of reducing tax rate below revenue neutral rate Public Hearings and Work Sessions (All Meetings Begin at 7:00 p.m.) Public Hearings May 21 Central Orange Senior Center, 203 Meadowlands Drive, Hillsborough May 26 Southern Human Services Center, Homestead Road, Chapel Hill Work Sessions May 28 Southern Human Services Center, Homestead Road, Chapel Hill June 4 Southern Human Services Center, Homestead Road, Chapel Hill June 9 Link Government Services Center, 200 South Cameron Street, Hillsborough Work Session/Adoption June 11 Link Government Services Center, 200 South Cameron Street, Hillsborough Final Adoption June 16 Southern Human Services Center, Homestead Road, Chapel Hill Document Availability •Clerk to Board of Commissioners •County Budget Office •Orange County Library •Chapel Hill Public Library •Carrboro/McDougle Branch Library •Cybrary, Carrboro •Cedar Grove Branch Library •Orange County Website •www.co.orange.nc.us 3. Public Comment Danna Bailey said that she lives in Efland Cheeks and the County is about to increase rates for water by 300% for only 200+ people. She is a single mother with four children. She asked that the County Commissioners try and find another way to fund this rate deficit. Sam Gharbo spoke about the Efland sewer rate increase. He said that back in 1984 when the Efland-Cheeks Elementary School sewer failed, the County put in a sewer system to keep the school's system afloat. The County asked the residents to help defray the cost. The Board projected that 212 people were needed at$15.20 to subsidize the entire project. At that point, people signed up. Over the next 20 years, there were many proposals and a bond to expand the system. There has been a lot of talk and desire to do more for that system to expend it. Currently, there are 213 customers and two subdivisions — Richmond Hills and Ashwick—which comprise about 100 of those 213. Forty-five percent of the 213 are low- income. The County paid $15,000 to come up with a new rate plan to make the Efland sewer system self-sufficient. If this is implemented, Efland sewer will be the third highest sewer rate in the State. He said that the question that the County should have asked the group that created the new rate system structure was, how big does it have to be and how many people have to be on the system so that the Efland Cheeks customers can pay the average rate for the State. He said that it is wrong and unethical to ask someone who uses 6,000 gallons of water four years from now for a family of five to wash, clean, and flush to pay $121 a month. He said that this is a bad time to be looking at this. He said that people in Efland are willing to pay their fair share, but after 20+ years of talking about doing more and expanding the system, the rate should not go up so much because there are budget issues. He said that the people of Efland helped Orange County during this time. Robert Dowling, Executive Director of Orange Community Housing and Land Trust, submitted a letter: "Dear Chair Foushee and Members of the County Commission: I would like to thank the Commissioners for all the support you have provided to this organization during the last decade. The growth and success of the Land Trust (soon to be Home Trust) would not have been possible without the support and participation of the County. Thanks to that support, Orange County has become a model in providing inclusionary housing that strives to be permanently affordable. In fact, on May 29th we will be hosting visits from two groups that hope to learn about inclusionary housing and the Community Land Trust model. One group is from Charlotte, NC and the other is from Charleston, SC. In our budget request for 2009-10, we requested the same allocation that we receive in the current fiscal year, which is $149,000. We understand this is a particularly difficult year as the County seeks to reduce its overall budget. We have participated in the cost cutting by reducing our 2008-09 budget by more than 10%. However, in 2009-10 we will be increasing our staff from 7 FTE to 8.5 FTE because we are expected to sell more than twice as many homes as we would in an average year. This increase in volume is due to inclusionary housing policies in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Today there are 138 homes in the Home Trust, and by June of 2010 we expect we will total about 180 homes. Over the past five or six years, we have learned that once homes are in the Home Trust, they require attention and staff resources forever. The workload never diminishes; it only increases with every new development and every new home. While this growth is exciting, it adds considerably to our workload. Not only are we required to collect monthly fees, assist with maintenance and manage all re-sales but we are also increasingly tasked with assisting owners who become delinquent in their financial obligations. This aspect of our work is absorbing an ever larger percentage of our staff resources. Of course, as our inventory of homes continues to grow, the numbers of delinquencies will also increase. I would like to share some of the successes and challenges faced by the Home Trust as we undertake our work on a daily basis: - We closed today on a condominium in Meadowmont with a person with physical disabilities who will be able to live independently, affordable and close to his place of work. - We are providing more financial and homebuyer counseling than ever before. In conjunction with other nonprofit organizations, we continue to offer monthly classes that are open and free to the public. Our individual budget counseling has become more necessary in this economic downturn, but we simply lack the staff resources necessary to meet the need. - We will be selling an East 54 condominium to another person with disabilities. We worked with the developer to incorporate universal design features that will allow this owner to be relatively self-sufficient in her new home. She hopes to close by the end of August. - We have allocated more than $100,000 of our own reserves to prevent two foreclosures. In both instances, the owners were unable to afford their homes, which we are not trying to sell. - We work with lenders to increase the financing options for our buyers. At this time home Trust owners are unable to refinance their mortgages and take advantage of lower interest rates. We are working with Chapel Hill and County staff to address this issue. - We assist homeowners in Vineyard Square to ensure that they are treated fairly by the homeowners association. This has been a constant struggle due to built-in inequities in the governing documents. - Lastly, we strive to look into the future and develop an inclusionary housing program that allows low-income families and individuals to be successfully integrated into the larger community. We seek to achieve an elusive goal: homes that will remain affordable and well-maintained to serve many generations of low-income households. Again, I want to thank the Commissioners for your support. We recognize this is a difficult year and we will work hard to continue the success of this program in 2009-10." Jim Rogaski spoke in support of the Carrboro High School arts wing. He encouraged the County Commissioners to fund this because it is a shovel-ready project. He feels that this is important because his son was part of a high school theater production and there were over 60 kids involved. The entire set had to be built in a classroom since there is no arts wing and it had to be taken to Culbreth Middle School in order to use their auditorium. The set then had to be disassembled every day and returned to the high school. He said that Carrboro High School needs an auditorium and it is a core part of the campus. Susana Dancy also spoke in support of an auditorium at Carrboro High School. She said that it may be easy to see this as a frivolous request, but the school districts and Board of County Commissioners adopted standards about what new high schools should look like. The standards include auditoriums and sufficient space for arts education. She said that the school system decided to move this item up on the funding schedule as of this week. Alexandra Brown spoke in support of keeping the Carrboro Library and the Cedar Grove Library open. She said that she has worked at both libraries and she has insight on the need for these branches. She said that a lot of families that came to the Carrboro branch library did not have transportation or internet access and would come to the library to use the computer to look for jobs. There are also story times for children. She said that if the Carrboro Library closes, the Chapel Hill Library will surely start charging a user fee for those people who live outside the town limits, maybe as much at$100 a year. She said that the new library in Hillsborough was passed without input from the community or even the Library Task Force and apparently without thought for extra staffing. She said that there is no free transportation to Hillsborough. She said that if these two branches close, the relatively small community of Hillsborough will still enjoy a beautiful new library, but many more Orange County residents will be left with nothing. She said that everyone has a right to this service. Aurora Boyer said that she has worked at the Carrboro Library. Her job was to attract the Hispanic community to the library and promote literacy and a healthy community. She said that she got so much support from the community and other entities. She said that she would put directions in Spanish, organize events to publicize the library to Hispanics, increase the number of library cards for Hispanics, and increase Hispanic books. She said that she hopes the County can find a creative way to keep the library open. Roberta Dulong said that she is one of those residents who will be affected by the increase in the water and sewer rates. She said that 210 people will assume these costs and she asked that the County allow these residents to keep the same rates and maybe put on an add-on fee over 20 years and maybe the costs could be absorbed by then. Eric Dingfelder spoke about the 48.1% for the schools. He said that this is asking both school systems to take a smaller piece of a smaller pie. He said that the schools most likely will be cutting staff members at the schools if the funding percentage stays at 48.1% of the General Fund. Melanie Rio spoke in support of the arts wing at Carrboro High School. She works in the Theater Department at Carrboro High School. She said that there was an awards ceremony last week and it was held in the gymnasium, where the acoustics are terrible, and it was televised so that everyone would be able to see it because there is not enough room for everyone in the gym. The lack of an auditorium also poses problems for the band program. She said that this should be part of the initial plan for a school and it is not optional. Blair Pollock said that he is celebrating 22 years of public service to Orange County and Chapel Hill. On behalf of the employees of Orange County, he asked the County Commissioners to reconsider the contribution to the employees' 401(k). He said that the other governmental entities are keeping their contributions. He suggested freezing it rather than discontinuing it. He said that the commitment to employees is important in retaining good employees. He said that, as the County Commissioners talk about solid waste convenience centers and the discontinuance of hours, some people would end up working every weekend of the year and this may put a burden on some staff. Allison Coleman lives in the Efland area and is the HOA President of the Richmond Hills subdivision. She said that there was a group of people that have attended from the neighborhood to protest the water and sewer rate increases. She said a lot of people in her community cannot afford the increase in these rates. She suggested putting more people on the system to lower the rates for all. Ben Lloyd said that times are tough out there and he tries to live within his means. He said that Orange County has been living beyond its means for too long and now it is out of money. The County is now asking employees to take cuts and furloughs. He said that if the County had economic growth, it would have had more money. He said that Orange County residents are hurting and several thousand people attended tax revolt meetings. Over 5,000 tax appeals were filed due to the revaluations. He said that he had 11 solicitations from good causes in his mail yesterday, but the money is not available and so he has had to say no. He said that Orange County is going to have to prioritize and scrutinize like never before. He said that the County should fund schools and law enforcement up front. Orange County does not have a credit card, but only a money tree. Giovanni Reyes lives in Richmond Hills and he asked the County Commissioners to reduce the water and sewer rates. He said that he lives in a Habitat for Humanity community. He has a wife and one child and another one on the way and he works in the construction business, which is slow right now. Many of his neighbors are here tonight but this increase would hurt them all and they are on limited incomes right now. He is paying $70 a month now for water and will end up paying $120 a month soon. Janace Johnson is a resident of Richmond Hills in Efland and asked the County Commissioners to reconsider the water rate increase because this is a low-income community. Kyle Winters said that he hopes the children of Orange County are not going to suffer in these down economic times with the decrease in school funding. Marie Ramirez asked the County Commissioners to not increase the water rates in the Richmond Hills community. This is a low-income community and some of them only work 3-4 days a week. She asked the County Commissioners to please put the rates at a price that they can afford. Camille Coleman is a junior at Orange High School and she lives in Richmond Hills. She said that this is a community with a lot of children. She said that there is an 85% failure rate for the septic systems. She said that there is concern that the children will get sick from the septic systems. 4. Adjournment A motion was made by Commissioner Nelson, seconded by Commissioner Gordon to adjourn the meeting at 8:21 PM. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Valerie Foushee, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC Clerk to the Board