We have surpassed 40 legislative days at the North Carolina General Assembly. Though we have worked at a dizzying pace, we remain focused on getting more money into your pockets by right-sizing the government and getting it out of the way of the job creating private sector.

I am [...]]]>

We have surpassed 40 legislative days at the North Carolina General Assembly. Though we have worked at a dizzying pace, we remain focused on getting more money into your pockets by right-sizing the government and getting it out of the way of the job creating private sector.

I am excited to tell you about the legislation that has recently emerged at the General Assembly, because I feel that it ultimately affects and benefits you, the hard working people of North Carolina.

Senate Bill 22 is an important bill that was passed and signed by the governor last week. It forbids any new rules and regulations to be placed on the private sector, until a joint committee of House and Senate members reviews the rules, which are already in place, and determines which ones are burdensome and ineffective. The committee is touring the state and hearing suggestions about the regulations from citizens, business owners and environmentalists. More than 15,000 rules have been put on the books over the past decade. For years, these burdensome regulations on businesses have created uncertainty in the private sector, which has stifled job growth and economic recovery. Our private- sector companies deserve the freedom to profit and create jobs. With this law enacted, our North Carolina businesses now have the ability to exercise this freedom, one that has been strangled for so many years. For more information, here is the link for Senate Bill 22: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/Senate/PDF/S22v6.pdf.

The next piece of legislation that was passed in both the House and the Senate, and that has just reached the governor’s desk is Senate Bill 265. It is an effort to reform the State Health Plan. The bill moves the plan from politicians and puts it under the state treasurer’s authority. It requires state employees to pay a modest premium– about $21 for the best plan, and half that for basic coverage. That is about 5 percent of the total cost, and retirees, as promised, are still offered a no-premium option for the basic plan. To maintain access to affordable medicine, we kept $10 copays on generic prescriptions. The State Health Plan is teetering on the verge of financial collapse and in order to save the plan and keep our promises to retirees, we had to make sweeping changes. This bill represents our goal to keep the plan afloat, but also keep costs as low as possible for the thousands of North Carolinians who have devoted their lives to public service. We feel that this bill strikes that balance. So much so, in fact, that the State Employees Association of North Carolina have endorsed the major components of the bill. Senate Bill 265 should allow the State Health Plan to become financially stable. Taken from the NCGA website, here is the link for Senate Bill 265: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/Senate/PDF/S265v6.pdf.

House Bill 546 was filed last week. Most of you may have already heard about this bill. It authorizes the Charlotte- Mecklenburg schools to develop and implement alternative salary plans for instructional personnel and school administrators. It would allow the CMS superintendent, Peter Gorman, to implement a pay for performance program in which teachers would be rewarded on numerous different measures of effectiveness. The bill is still in House committee. More updates about this bill will be given as the information emerges. Here is a link for House Bill 546: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/PDF/H546v1.pdf.

As for the hot topic of redistricting, a public hearing has been scheduled for Mecklenburg County for Saturday, April 30, at 9:30 am at Central Piedmont Community College. For more information concerning the redistricting process and public hearings, please see the website: http://www.ncleg.net/gis/randr07/redistricting.html.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding these issues or others, please feel free to contact Senator Rucho at:
Senator Bob Rucho
Senate
300-A Legislative Office Building
300 N. Salisbury Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603-5925
(919) 733-5655
bobr@ncleg.net

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CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 16, 2011 – Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will begin polling parents, students and community members tomorrow, March 17, for input on the 2012-2013 CMS school calendar. Two calendar options and the poll will go live after 9 a.m. on March 17. A link to the poll, which includes both versions [...]]]>

CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 16, 2011 – Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will begin polling parents, students and community members tomorrow, March 17, for input on the 2012-2013 CMS school calendar. Two calendar options and the poll will go live after 9 a.m. on March 17. A link to the poll, which includes both versions of the 2012-2013 calendar (Calendar A and Calendar B), will be located on the CMS home page under Calendar Poll. The poll will end at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, March 24.

A committee of CMS teachers, principals, administrators, parents and community members designed two 2012-2013 school calendars with various options for teacher workdays, annual leave days and holidays throughout the 215-day school year. Both calendars meet the requirements of North Carolina law, North Carolina Board of Education and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education policies. Among those requirements:
The calendar must cover 215 total days, divided among instructional school days, teacher workdays, annual leave days and holidays.

There must be 180 instructional school days, starting no earlier than Aug. 25 and ending no later than June 10.
The calendar must include 15 teacher workdays, including one scheduled before school starts and one scheduled at the end of each academic quarter.

There are 10 holidays, one of which must be Veterans Day.
There must be 10 annual leave days.
The calendar committee must also schedule an equal number of days for the first and second semesters so that high school courses have 135 instructional hours.

The major differences between the two calendars include days in which teacher workdays are offered, the length of winter break and the week of spring break. Both calendars have eight severe weather make-up days.

After the polling period concludes, CMS Superintendent Dr. Peter Gorman will review the results, evaluate comments submitted by staff, parents and community residents, and could make changes to either calendar. He will recommend one calendar to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The Board is scheduled to vote on the 2012-2013 calendar at its April 12 meeting.

Calendar A

Calendar Comparisons

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Ballantyne, NC – Ballantyne Hotel was the site of a flurry of activity. An over flow crowd was in attendance for the January 27th property revaluation meeting. Ballantyne Breakfast Club was the host for the discussion and drew the largest attendance thus far for this series of public sessions taking place [...]]]>

Ballantyne, NC – Ballantyne Hotel was the site of a flurry of activity. An over flow crowd was in attendance for the January 27th property revaluation meeting. Ballantyne Breakfast Club was the host for the discussion and drew the largest attendance thus far for this series of public sessions taking place county wide. District 7 City Council Member Warren Cooksey helped organize the meeting for Ballantyne residents. Mecklenburg County Vice-Chair Jim Pendergraft apologized on behalf of District 6 Board Member Bill James who was under the weather and unable to attend. Mr. Pendergraft went on to explain that the county website for the property revaluation is up and running at http://reval.charmeck.org and all of the meeting information is available there. The county expects to mail the private property revaluations by February 7th and hopes the county will remain revenue neutral, however this does not mean taxes will not increase. The county will decide the new tax rate sometime in June.

Mecklenburg County Tax Assessor Garrett Alexander was present to talk about the appeals process. The state statute gives each property owner 30 days from the date the property revaluation is received in the mail.There are approximately 319,000 privately owned properties in this county. The county hopes to mail the commercial revaluations on March 1st, 2011.The county is still analyzing the 2010 fourth quarter tax data and expects to be done analyzing all of the data shortly.

The lead appraiser For The ReValuation Team is Chuck Hicks. Mr. Hicks did a power point presentation explaining the process (available on the website).The last time the property revaluation was done in this county was 2003. The 2003 process was partly based on 2002 property values. Two major factors influence the current process. One is market value. This is defined as the most probable price in an open market in a typical sale in the absence of undo stimulus. The second factor is equity. This is defined as the reflection of the current value applied fairly. Every county in North Carolina is bound by the state appraisal standards when doing revaluations.

In the past, foreclosures were not included in the revaluations. This years revaluation will include foreclosures. Appraisers can use a cost approval approach or a sales approach. The state has mandated that all counties do a property revaluation a maximum of every eight years.

Between the years of 2002 – 2006, the federal government lowered the interest rates several times. This temporarily increased property sales and prices. Some time after this there was a ‘market correction’. The ‘top’ of the housing bubble was in 2007. In 2009, the county was scheduled to do a revaluation but the commissioners decided they wanted to postpone this revaluation.

The ratio used by the county is the assessed value divided by the actual sale price which equals the assessment/sales ratio. If your property has increased in value since the 2003 revaluation, your ratio is below 100% (meaning your taxes will likely increase). If the price of your home has fallen, then your ratio is above 100%. If the value of your house is approximately the same as it was in 2003, then your ratio will be at or near 100%. The county board of commissioners will decide the new tax rate in June.

All property owners should receive a new property revaluation form. This is a perforated piece of paper and all appeals should be filled out on the lower portion of this same form. After filing an appeal, the owner should receive a post card from the county. Owners have 30 days from the date they receive the new property revaluation form to appeal the value. An example of a reason to appeal: if you have several unsold properties in your neighborhood and you feel the county has not taken this into account. Another example of a reason to appeal would be if there are a large number of rental units in the neighborhood that you feel the county did not take into account. A third example of appeal would be if the county has the square footage wrong or if it has changed since 2002. This would be time to fill out the lower portion of the form and mail it to the county with the number of unsold properties in your neighborhood. Please included a reason of why the county’s value is not the actual value.

The ‘Board of Equalization’ will be handling the appeals (click here for appeals info). This board is required by law to handle these appeals starting the first Monday in April and be finished by the first Monday in May. Each owner will need evidence to show why the value should be changed. Right now this board has nine members. This board member size was decided in 1981. The current board of county commissioners would like to control the size of the ‘Board of Equalization’. The county commissioners would like to increase the size to 15 members in a revaluation year. This is due to the number of appeals that are expected. There is a bill in Raleigh right now to allow the Mecklenburg County Commission to establish an ordinance to control the membership size of the ‘board of equalization’ locally. The other idea is to have two concurrent or successive panels in order to speed up the appeals process. All of the appeals forms will be scanned and put into a ‘queue.’ Property owners have 15 days after receiving a decision from the ‘Board of Equalization’ to file a second appeal. The reason for this board is a system of ‘checks and balances’.

The county now has seven appraisers on the revaluation team and seventeen appraisers who handle new construction.The county appraisers are using the median and not the mean. Here the reason the mean was not chosen. For example, if a neighborhood has an average sales price of $400,000 but one house sells for $1 million. This $1 million dollar sale would skew the mean for that particular neighborhood. The median takes this kind of anomaly into consideration. Using the median, all the rest of the neighborhood would not have unusually high property values due to one house that sold for $1 million. This will help the county arrive at the fair market value for properties.

A question was asked about why the county is choosing ‘30 days’ for appeals rather than giving property owners until May 15th. Mr. Alexander stated that there are statutes and case law to support the idea of a ‘30 day window of time’ to appeal. Another question was asked about lack of data. What happens if there are no sales of properties in a neighborhood for 2009 or 2010? Mr. Hicks explained that trend sales from 2007 and line of best fit are used to best estimate the fair market value. The appraisers use the best data available to arrive at the fair market value.

The county suggests that property owners go to the revaluation web site before the revaluation form arrives. Type in the address of your property and check to see what value is listed.The county is using a median analysis system of doing the revaluation. The date on the revaluation is January 1, 2011. The county expects to mail the private property revaluations by February 7th.

Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer

http://ballantynescoop.com

Follow Susan on Twitter @susanjspaulding

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The Charlotte Observer recently made a request to the City of Charlotte for a copy of it’s email database. As Ballantyne Scoop reported on Twitter back in December the email list is considered to be part of “public information” and therefore can be turned over to whomever requests it. Including companies interested [...]]]>

The Charlotte Observer recently made a request to the City of Charlotte for a copy of it’s email database. As Ballantyne Scoop reported on Twitter back in December the email list is considered to be part of “public information” and therefore can be turned over to whomever requests it. Including companies interested in using the databases for advertising or possible spam. These databases are considered to be extremely valuable by companies and marketers for several reasons.

This city’s database could be considered by many as a “safe” list, meaning that these who have signed up for information on the sites are more likely to give accurate email addresses resulting in fewer bounce backs.But one of the more important reasons these list would be considered valuable is because they are provided for free. It is not unusual for companies to spend considerable amounts of money to have access to a good email data base.

The City sent out an email to all of its news subscribers on Monday clarifying the issue, it follows below.

Since notifying you of the Charlotte Observer’s request for the City’s email database, we have received your feedback and recommendations. One of the common recommendations is the location of our privacy policy, which indicates that as part of this subscription database your email may be a public record. Therefore, we will be making changes to our site to ensure the policy is more prominent to future subscribers. We will also indicate that emails of those who solely subscribe to news from public enterprise departments, such as CATS, Solid Waste, Utilities and Storm Water are protected under NC public records law; however emails submitted for subscriptions to all other areas are public record.

And secondly to protect subscribers, the City is seeking legislation in the NC General Assembly to prevent the release of email databases and would allow only public inspection of this information. Currently, the law is applicable only in Wake and Yadkin counties.

We appreciate and value your participation in our subscription service and apologize for any inconvenience.

Here is your signature codes to place at the bottom of articles.

caroline@ballantynescoop.com

2010 Ballantyne Scoop The Scoop Network

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Ballantyne, NC - The Ballantyne Breakfast Club is holding a special meeting on Thursday, January 27th. This is the next property revaluation meeting. It will be held at the Ballantyne Hotel in the Fairway Ball Room at 7:00 pm. Councilman Warren Cooksey will have a presentation to explain and clarify the revaluation [...]]]>

Ballantyne, NC - The Ballantyne Breakfast Club is holding a special meeting on Thursday, January 27th. This is the next property revaluation meeting. It will be held at the Ballantyne Hotel in the Fairway Ball Room at 7:00 pm. Councilman Warren Cooksey will have a presentation to explain and clarify the revaluation process. County representatives will be present. On February 12th, The Ballantyne Breakfast Club will meet in the Ballantyne Hotel. This is the ‘Priorities 2011 Meeting’. ‘On hand’ will be elected officials from the state, county, city, CMPD, CMS, the district attorney’s office and the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. All will speak about their top three priorities for their respective areas. All are encouraged to attend both meetings.

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Ballantyne, NC – Is there pressure on the schools to teach the children? Is C.M.S just throwing money at the school problems? The C.M.S. Board of Education draws the lines for which students attend which specific schools. District 6 C.M.S. Representative Tim Morgan reminded all that the magnet schools were created to [...]]]>

Ballantyne, NC – Is there pressure on the schools to teach the children? Is C.M.S just throwing money at the school problems? The C.M.S. Board of Education draws the lines for which students attend which specific schools. District 6 C.M.S. Representative Tim Morgan reminded all that the magnet schools were created to alleviate issues with children attending their ‘home’ schools.

Will the Charter School cap be lifted? Scott Babbidge is concerned that schools do not use detention as a method to control behavior. The K.I.P.P. Academy requires parents and students sign a contract in order to become a student. The county board of commissioners does not have authority to control the schools. The authority resides with the C.M.S. Board of Education. Scott Babbidge and Scott Mickel are both members of the Charlotte Chamber Legislative Agenda Task Force. Both asked if the C.M.S. Board of Education had adopted a legislative agenda at this time. District 6 C.M.S. Representative Morgan explained that the C.M.S. Board has not yet adopted a legislative agenda. The C.M.S. Board does anticipate soon adopting this agenda.

Morgan also stated that the school board is ‘pushing’ for ‘greater flexibility’ from the North Carolina General Assembly. The state requires that the school year is 180 days between August 25th and June 10th. Currently the exams fall after Christmas. Many would like to see the exams happen before Christmas. ‘Greater flexibility’ from the general assembly would allow this exam time change to happen. It would also allow many other necessary changes to be decided by local board members.

At the January 25th meeting, several key decisions must be finalized by the board of education. The first is a bell-schedule/transportation change. These changes are linked. Currently, all elementary schools meet for six hours and 15 minutes per day. Local high schools meet for seven hours per day. This change would put most elementary schools at a seven hour school day. If the elementary bell change is finalized, this allows for greater bus efficiency. Each bus can be used for four or possibly five schools. These changes will equal a savings of $4 million dollars. The state originally mandated this bell schedule in order to give time for the teachers to plan at the end of each day. C.M.S will work at the ‘school-house level’ to ensure that teachers have time to plan. C.M.S does not anticipate teachers working longer days due to this change.

Another item to be finalized at the January 25th meeting is the change to ‘Bright Beginnings’. This would be a $10 million dollars savings. The number of ‘Bright Beginning’ Classes would go from 175 to 70 if this change is implemented. The third important vote for the January 25th meeting is ‘weighted student staffing’. The ‘weighted student staffing’ is scheduled to go from 1.3 to 1.25 with this proposed change. This change would save $10 million dollars. These decisions will be made final in the January 25th board meeting.

The current deadline is a ‘self-imposed’ board deadline. The school board would like to give time for parents to know about the elementary school bell-schedule/transportation change. They would also like for teachers to also know about this same bell-schedule/transportation change. Each school needs to know how many teachers they will be loosing. The school board would like to provide information to the community about ‘Bright Beginnings’. This is done so local service providers will have time to ‘step up’ and help with the children who were in ‘Bright Beginnings’.

Also at the January 25th board meeting, the magnet school transportation change will be considered. Some board members would like to remove all C.M.S. School Transportation for magnet schools to save money. Currently the board does not know the exact shortfall of this budget. 85% of the school funding comes from the county and the state. The school board does not know the exact amount that it will receive from either the county or the state. The board is facing an approximate shortfall of $100 million for the new budget.

The April 26th meeting is the public budget meeting. The final vote on this budget will happen at the May 10th C.M.S. Board Meeting. The next board meeting is Tuesday, January 25th at 6:00 pm in the government center. All are encouraged to attend.

Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer

http://ballantynescoop.com

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Ballantyne, NC – Will local governments consolidate? The Martin Luther King Holiday is January 17th so the city council meeting has been altered. This week’s council meeting will be on Tuesday, January 18th. Zoning will be one topic on the January 18th agenda.

The new parking lot with the ‘Four-Mile Green [...]]]>

Ballantyne, NC – Will local governments consolidate? The Martin Luther King Holiday is January 17th so the city council meeting has been altered. This week’s council meeting will be on Tuesday, January 18th. Zoning will be one topic on the January 18th agenda.

The new parking lot with the ‘Four-Mile Green Way’ off of Rea Road is a topic for discussion. This parking lot is near the corner of Rea Road and Bevington Place. Currently there are a few spaces on the street. Others park in the ‘Trader Joe’s Shopping Center’. Those in the ‘Trader Joe’s’ Parking Lot will most likely get towed. The location of this parking lot is also a problem. It is difficult to get right in and get right out. Also there is no u-turn allowed here. Larry Huelsman(C.R.V.A.) has serious doubts that the new parking lot is the answer. The Charlotte Regional Visitor’s Authority(C.R.V.A.) anticipates around 150 U-turns on Bevington Place per day. A new wall is needed for this lot. The cost for the wall is approximately $150,000 – $200,000. Moms with strollers parked on the street are a safety issue. This might not be the sustainable solution.

The master plan for this green way is not finished. This plan will emphasize automobile traffic. 20% of the people at the green way are ‘coming up’ from South Carolina. Some believe that spreading the traffic out is a better solution. If the traffic is spread out, this could be cost prohibitive. Spreading traffic out might not be the right fix. The new parking lot will need trees and lights. Approximately 30 cars will be the maximum in this lot. Councilman Cooksey asked about parking at The South County Regional Library or at Calvary Church. Worries over vehicles safety might keep some from parking at either of these locations. Can the public be convinced with new signs to park at either of these locations?

The city council retreat will be starting on January 31st. This year it will be held at J.C. Smith University in Charlotte. Council member Nancy Carter is in charge of this years retreat. She has already announced that no ‘communications devices’ will be allowed in the meetings at the retreat. She also has asked other council members to pledge to keep everything at the retreat confidential. Council member Carter is asking for a pledge of confidentiality at public meetings. Public meetings can NOT be confidential. This is a mystery. This next council meeting the retreat committee will be meeting to talk about this mystery and other retreat issues.

The York Development Group will be working at the corner of Providence West and new 521. A rezoning request has been applied for only minor changes. The proposed site plans and changes can be seen here. The issue will be addressed at the March 21, 2011 Council meeting.

Consolidation is once again is a hot topic. C.M.S. District 6 Representative Tim Morgan stated that the majority of the local legislative delegation is unlikely to support consolidation. Councilman Warren Cooksey reminded all that ‘big’ steps toward consolidation have not been taken at this time. There would need to be a consolidation commission appointed in order to be closer to consolidation. This commission would need to also hold a referendum and allow all voters to vote on the consolidation. Then the charter would go to the North Carolina General Assembly. None of these steps have happened. Fifteen years ago in Charlotte, consolidation was talked about and a commission was appointed. After the commission was appointed, it was decided that there were too many ‘whites’ on the commission. Later, several African-Americans were appointed to this commission. Lynn Wheeler and Don Reid were part of this commission process at this time. Don Reid stated that the first to speak about wanting consolidation are the very people who want to be the first ’Metro-Mayor’. Now, both Mayor Foxx and County Chairperson Roberts claim to have firm priorities.

District 6 C.M.S. Representative Tim Morgan explained that the best consolidation would be with the county and the school board because the county funds a significant portion of the C.M.S. budget. District 6 Representative Morgan does not think it would be wise to consolidate the city and the county governments. Overall, Mr. Morgan does not support consolidation.

On January 17th, The N.A.S.C.A.R. Hall of Fame will participate in the Martin Luther King Breakfast. N.A.S.C.A.R. is one of the a sponsors of the M.L.K. Breakfast which will be held at the Westin Hotel at 7:00 am. January 26th is the National Media Tour Stop at the Hall of Fame.

Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer

http://ballantynescoop.com

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This reporter was anxious to attend my first meeting in the chamber of the government center. I am happy to report that it was a very informative and thought provoking process. I did learn much about how this board makes decisions.

The Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board of Education met on December [...]]]>

This reporter was anxious to attend my first meeting in the chamber of the government center. I am happy to report that it was a very informative and thought provoking process. I did learn much about how this board makes decisions.

The Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board of Education met on December 14th, 2010 in the chamber of The Charlotte Government Center at 6:00 pm. The meeting opened with the pledge of allegiance and the amended agenda. Per the board rules, Dr. Gorman was presiding over the vote for the board chairperson. C.M.S.District 5 Representative Eric Davis was nominated by At-Large Representative ‘Coach’ Joe White. At-Large Member Trent Merchant was also nominated for the position of chairperson.
However, At-Large Member Trent Merchant declined this nomination. The votes went to the incumbent Chairman Eric Davis. Chairman Davis was presiding over the vote for vice-chairperson. District 4 Representative Tom Tate, At-Large Representative Kaye McGarry and District 6 Representative Tim Morgan were all nominated in that order. District 4 Representative Tom Tate won this vote.

Next were the public speakers. One speaker is an advocate for ‘Classroom Central’. This is a ‘free store’ for teachers in Charlotte that is no longer funded by C.M.S. ‘Classroom Central’ has been in operation for nine years. They serve 122 schools and 7,770 students. One of the major sponsors of this project is The Goodrich Corporation. The speaker for ‘Classroom Central’ would like to have this project reinstated in the C.M.S. Budget. Several speakers would like to get E.E. Waddell on the list of open schools instead of the list of schools to close. Several parents who have children in magnet schools also spoke about the cuts to magnet transportation.

Guy Chamberlin, C.M.S. Associate Superintendent for Auxiliary Services, also briefly spoke to the board about minority participation in the electrical retrofit project. This project will help make more schools more energy efficient. C.M.S has more than the minimum amount of minority participation for this and other projects.

At-Large Representative Kaye McGarry made her case for mandatory audio-taping of every closed door board meeting. She cited the open meting laws as one reason to record the closed meetings. On September 28th of this year, the C.M.S. Board stopped recording their closed door meetings. At that same meeting, one board member was insistent on personally recording the meeting. Several board members cited that fact that Nancy Daughtridge takes detailed notes of these meetings as a reason not to record. The board did vote to not have audio-recordings of their closed door meetings. This measure failed by a vote of 2 to 7.

Carol Stamper, C.M.S. Executive Director of Transportation Director and Derek Graham both spoke about ways to save money through transportation changes. Mr. Graham is the Section Chief of Transportation Services for The North Carolina Department of Transportation. Ms. Stamper outlined several different ways money can be saved. Buses are the safest and most environmentally sound way to transport children to and from schools. Children are 45 times more likely to remain safe on a bus versus riding with a teen driver. The current number of C.M.S school buses transport 56,000 children. This keeps many vehicles off the road and increases safety for all in Charlotte. In one year, the C.M.S. Transportation Department uses 7 million gallons of fuel that costs $20 million dollars.

Mr. Graham then explained the funding formula used by the state for the amount given to each county for school transportation. There are three elements to this formula: 1.The funding base 2. The budget rating 3. Budget rating X (multiplied by) base funding. Local funding for school transportation is capped by the general assembly of the state. Mr. Graham stated that efficiency is key. Ms. Stamper stated that option #1 to save money would be not transporting any students who live less than 1.5 miles from their school. This would equal a major re-arranging of the C.M.S. Transportation Zones. The initial savings for year one of this idea is $5 – $6 million. Unfortunately, in year two, this would also mean a 15% drop in the money received from the state. The state has a ‘simulator’ that is not as helpful as it sounds. This ‘simulator’ is one year old data.

Along with a complicated and outdated formula the state has ‘frontier counties’ that are doing well, in the state’s estimations. There are 100 counties in North Carolina, only two or three are ‘frontier counties’. The current state transportation formula is from 1990. C.M.S. At-Large Representative Trent Merchant and District 1 Representative Rhonda Lennon both commented that this formula is outdated and not as efficient as it could be. District 1 Representative Rhonda Lennon suggested that all of the board should be contacting the state representatives about this formula. Ms. Lennon would like to speak to Representative Thom Tillis and the need for more flexibility in funding. Chairman Eric Davis is also anxious to speak to Representative Thom Tillis about the formula. He would like to suggest an ‘urban’ funding formula.

Ms. Stamper went on to present the idea of cutting funding for magnet school transportation. The cost savings would depend on which track the board chooses. The first option that board can choose is to stop transportation for only full magnet schools. The second option is to choose to stop transportation for full and partial magnet schools. The option for only full magnet schools would save $6.7 million dollars. The second option would save $6.7 plus another $2.8 million. This would be approximately $9.5 million dollars in total savings if the board chooses the full and partial magnet school transportation option. However, this $9.5 million might not be fully realized due to logistics. If some students opt out of going to a magnet school and choose to now go to their ‘home’ school there are costs associated with that choice. This might cause the savings to be approximately $5.1 million even with the choice of full and partial magnets. In other words, it might cost the schools $4.4 million to transport these former magnet students to their ‘home’ schools.

A change in bell schedules in order to use each bus more often during a school day was another option put on the ‘table’. January 8th, 2011 there will be a ‘magnet fair’. The deadline for the magnet school applications is February 7th. Final decisions will need to be made before this February 7th deadline. The January 25th board meeting will be this date when major transportation decisions will need to be final.

District 3 Representative Dr. Joyce Waddell asked Ms. Stamper a question about bus driver duties. Can the bus drivers take on other responsibilities, like teacher’s assistant or work in the cafeteria? Ms. Stamper explained that this idea is no longer feasible. Most of the bus drivers are full time and work at least 7.5 hours per school day. Currently some buses drive students to four schools every morning and evening. District 6 Representative Tim Morgan reminded all that a school in his area, Hawk Ridge Elementary, there are buses driving to four and some to five schools each school day. This idea would expand this concept to more schools in C.M.S. Ms. Stamper went on to say that as many as 51,000 students might not have buses as a option in the future. District 6 Representative Tim Morgan asked if all of the schools are equipped for ‘stacking’. Dr. Gorman explained that some of the older schools are not as equipped for vehicles to to be ‘stacked’ in order for parents to drive their children to school. Dr. Gorman further explained that most of the newer schools are very will equipped for vehicle ‘stacking’ that might occur if fewer buses are used in the future.

District 6 Representative Tim Morgan asked about children being left on school buses. Mr. Morgan personally spoke to several parents who were not too happy with C.M.S after their child had been left on a bus. The C.M.S. Transportation Department has a new, required driver training program in place for safety. This new training program is designed to prevent just such an occurrence of children being left on school buses. Ms. Stamper went on to explain that this new training program is called the ‘check-mate’ system. When a school bus is turned off the driver has a short time to walk to the back of the bus to push a button or a warning will sound. If the driver does not push this button at the back of the bus, then the horn will automatically start honking. All of the drivers for C.M.S have been through this ‘check-mate’ training.

Dr. Gorman explained that C.M.S now has a new option of a two-hour weather related delay. For some parents this presents a problem of who will care for children during this two-hour window. This also can be a challenge with giving all children breakfast and lunch in time.

Ms. Stamper explained the new T.I.M.S system. This is when bus drivers give written notice of exactly which children are riding their bus. It is important to know which children are choosing to ride the bus every day and which are not riding the bus at all. Ms. Stamper is also anxious to go to some of the schools where bus ridership is a low number. She would like to promote bus ridership at these schools.

Derek Graham explained that magnet schools actually increase the need for more state funding. These magnet schools are usually further from where the students live and cost are more per magnet school student. This helps to ‘level’ the playing field in the state’s estimations. Homeless students also cost more per student. There are many ideas of how to save money. Final decisions by the C.M.S. Board have not been made yet.

(NOTE: Please look for Part 2 of this board meeting soon! )

Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer

http://ballantynescoop.com

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How will personal property values change in 2011? The breakfast meeting on December 31, 2010 started with the talk of the city council meetings. The council talked about canceling their January 3rd, 2011 meeting due to the small agenda. The 2011 Housing Revaluation is the only topic on the agenda. Garrett Alexander [...]]]>

How will personal property values change in 2011? The breakfast meeting on December 31, 2010 started with the talk of the city council meetings. The council talked about canceling their January 3rd, 2011 meeting due to the small agenda. The 2011 Housing Revaluation is the only topic on the agenda. Garrett Alexander is the county tax assessor for Mecklenburg County. He will be speaking to the council on the property revaluation process. The county will be ‘reevaluating’ all personal property in 2011. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department (C.M.P.D.) is not ready to talk in a closed session about the proposed changes to the hiring process. This should happen soon.

The city is usually revenue neutral when re-evaluating property. For example: if the current rate is $0.45 then revenue neutral would be approximately $0.40. District 6 Representative of the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners Bill James recently stated that he wants the county to be revenue negative. If we follow this example, revenue negative would be approximately $0.35. Mecklenburg County and the city do not have tax delinquency problems. Right now 99% of the people pay their taxes on time. To make budget, the city must have 95% of taxes paid on time. The city is expecting 2011 tax collection difficulties for commercial and personal property taxes. The county and the city are also expecting appeals on the housing property revaluation process. The expectation is around 20,000 appeals. Personal property has gone up in numbers faster than commercial property in this county.

Several attending the breakfast meeting talked about how long they have owned their homes and how they feel about the county revaluation. Most in attendance have owned their homes between six and ten years. In those years, the county has raised the property taxes several times and the city has raised property taxes only one time in fifteen years. The last time this process was done was in 2003. In 2009 the city instituted a 9% property tax increase. At their retreat last year, the county decided that The Parks and Recreation Department and the libraries were not a priority. The county decides their priorities at their yearly retreat.

All personal housing property owners will receive notifications of their new revaluations by mail in January 2011. This will included the new amount of taxes owed on said personal properties. In September of 2011 the tax bills will go out. At this time no one is sure if foreclosures will be a part of the tax revaluation process. In 2003 the city had a tax fee of $0.42 and the county had a fee of $0.73. In 2010 the city has a tax fee of $0.45 and the county a fee of $0.83. The county has implemented a significant tax increase in the past seven years. In 2003 the county paid $12 per ton for solid waste treatment. In that same year, the city paid $45 per ton. In 2010 the county pays $50 per ton and the city pays $45 per ton. The State of North Carolina requires that local governments reevaluate personal property a minimum of every eight years. The county expects to make this new revaluation revenue neutral and is awaiting the appeals of constituents. The city must make their decisions about the revaluation process by the June 13th budget deadline.

The city’s restructuring government committee recently had a meeting. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities Department (C.M.U.D.) is anticipating an increase in fixed costs and lower variable costs. C.M.U.D encourages citizens to conserve water by their tier structure rates. Those who use more water pay more per c.c.f. Those who use less pay less per c.c.f. A c.c.f. is a unit of hundreds of cubic feet of water. Some at the breakfast meeting have not received timely responses from the C.M.U.D staff when repairing water problems. The city sewer rates did recently go up in cost.

The current tax value of personal property is not based on the ‘sold’ price of a property. What happens if one family member sells a piece of land to another for $100? Obviously, the ‘sale’ price on a piece of property can easily be manipulated. In the past, Mecklenburg County has tried to reevaluate personal property every four years. Recently this evaluation has not happened.

Right now, sewer costs are fixed and water treatment costs are variable. At this time, 94% of the city ‘customers’ are using below 15 c.c.f water per month. This water usage equals a sewer charge of 24 c.c.f. The new proposal is to lower the tier 1 rate. This would change the amount of sewer usage assumption for people using below 15 c.c.f of water. The residential tier 4 water comprises 8% of the city residents. But this same 8% is paying 24% of the revenue. The city does not like the word ‘punitive’. The city does like the word ‘encouraging’ to describe their water rate tier structure. Is the charge for tier 4 water usage too high?

Droughts and floods greatly change the water and sewer rates. If there is a flood, people use less water and the rates go up. If there is a drought there is less water available and therefore the rates go up. Currently, individual water consumption is down but the overall water consumption is going up because the city is still growing. In 2011, the city will still use the four tier system. 50% of the overall water usage is in tier 1. Tier 4 comprises most of the water complaints. Districts 6 and 7 comprise most of the tier 4 water usage. If constituents currently in tier 4 start conserving water then there is less revenue generated. Currently the city can not cope with less revenue because of budget constraints.

The annual rate increase of five to seven percent that has happened for several years pays for the city’s capitol program. Property taxes pay for police, fire and debt services. District 7 City Council Representative Warren Cooksey does not want to vote for a property tax increase. But he has stated that he will not vote for a decrease in property taxes. Councilman Warren Cooksey believes that the scope of government should be limited but not the size. Government protects people, transports people, disposes of garbage and sewer and brings clean water. If anyone wants to know their current personal property evaluation they can go to:
http://polaris.mecklenburgcountync.gov/website/redesign/login.asp

Several ask about the funding for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (C.M.S.) The state does provide most of the funding. The local funding comes from the county. The federal government is now providing a bigger percentage of the C.M.S. Budget money. This means there are fewer flexible dollars since federal dollars are very restrictive. Currently 50% of the county property tax dollars go to the C.M.S budget. Tom E. Bowers is surprised at the high car insurance rates in this county compared to Washington D.C. Some are not surprised by the obnoxiously high car insurance rates in this county. Councilman Warren Cooksey noted that typically during election years the insurance rates go down.

In other local news, a man in a black truck did ‘attack’ two C.M.P.D. Officers on December 30th. The driver of the black truck purposely backed into one officer and then purposely hit another officer in a head on crash. It took firefighters over 25 minutes to free the second officer. Homicide and Internal Affairs were both quickly on the scene. Tom Bowers would also like to see judges give longer sentences to those driving drunk.

The general council for the city is DeWitt ‘Mac’ McCarley. His full-time pay is $194,000. Mr. McCarley is also the supervisor over the city’s other 22 attorneys. The attorney that works part-time for the county and represents council members only is Marvin Bethune. Harry L. Jones is the county manager. Mr. Jones takes all of the board items and puts them into action. He is charge of all of the many facets of the county government.

Monday, January 3rd, 2011 will be a historic day. Mecklenburg County will see the swearing in of a new district attorney. Andrew Murray will be sworn in at 8:30 am. He will be leaving his private practice to be the new district attorney. This is the first time our city has had a new district attorney in 35 years. Many look forward to positive changes in the office of the district attorney.

Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer

http://ballantynescoop.com

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Do you have questions about the value of your property? District 5 Representative Neil Cooksey from the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners will be offering a public forum on January 5th, 2011. The county is preparing to reevaluate all private personal property this year. Some residents have questions about the value [...]]]>

Do you have questions about the value of your property? District 5 Representative Neil Cooksey from the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners will be offering a public forum on January 5th, 2011. The county is preparing to reevaluate all private personal property this year. Some residents have questions about the value of their homes. This public forum will be at Alexander Graham Middle School on Wednesday, January 5th from 7:00 pm until approximately 8:30 pm. The forum will take place in the multipurpose room. The location of Alexander Graham Middle is: 1800 Runnymede Lane, Charlotte, NC 28211. The public is welcome.

Susan J. Spaulding
Public Policy Writer

http://ballantynescoop.com

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