Commissioners to meet on requests

The Orange County Board of Commissioners and area legislators want to make sure the county’s legislative requests get first priority in the N.C. General Assembly.

To that end, officials will meet for breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Monday at the Courtyard by Marriott on N.C. 54 to discuss the county’s needs.

Commissioners published their list of requests March 1. Among the 55 items, increased funding for local schools and county projects is at the forefront.

“We’ve always been high on education,” said Commissioner Stephen Halkiotis, “We try to fund everything they ask for, but sometimes it’s like pouring money into a giant hole in the ground. It seems like it never fills up.”

The board publishes many of the same requests each year on its legislative agenda.

“Orange County is so progressive with visionary ideas that people meet them with skepticism, especially home-builders,” said Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange.

New items for the 2005 legislative agenda include supporting legislation for increased per-pupil funding to schools, supporting state funding for school resource officers and backing a public referendum on a lottery that would provide funding for education.

Orange County Finance Director Ken Chavious said that lawmakers previously have helped Orange County’s schools and that he hopes they will continue to do so.

“Legislative agendas in the past gave us the new half-cent sales tax increase to fund public schools,” he said.

One of the other issues the county stresses in its agenda is paying for Medicaid.

“The number one issue is Medicaid relief,” said Chavious. “It’s been one of the most growing expenses the county has faced.”

Halkiotis also said he thought North Carolina is behind the times in covering Medicaid costs.

“The state needs to take over all of the Medicaid costs that are currently being paid by the county,” he said. “North Carolina is one of the two or three states left that hasn’t done that. It should be a state responsibility.”

Old proposals that appear again this year include a tax on cigarettes and a tax on alcohol.

“We are proposing that cigarette tax money goes back into public health-related programs as well as opportunities for tobacco farmers who won’t be farming as much tobacco anymore because of the tax,” Halkiotis said.

Both Halkiotis and Kinnaird said there should be a push to change an impact fee on housing to an impact tax.

“We have a tax system that doesn’t yield enough for our needs,” Kinnaird said. “Right now people pay as much for a trailer as for a $300,000 house.”

The commissioners also laid out election-related requests, such as using optical scanning, tabulating but not disclosing absentee ballots before Election Day, allowing state employees to take off work in order to service the polls and letting people revote whose ballots were lost.

Commissioners also support a ban on video poker machines.

“There are 155 video poker machines in this county, and it’s costing us $40,000 a month to be checking on these machines that bring no revenue to our county,” Halkiotis said.

Kinnaird said that legislators typically support county requests, but that they take time to implement.

“In 10 years, they’ll do what we do, but they’ll think it was their idea.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.