School Board Nixes Tax Proposal

HILLSBOROUGH – The Orange County school board has officially dropped the idea of seeking a referendum on a special district tax.

In deciding not to ask the Orange County Commissioners to schedule a referendum on the issue, board members cited either their outright opposition to a new tax, or concerns that the issue was too “divisive” to move forward.

“This issue is becoming very divisive and very distracting,” school board Chairwoman Dana Thompson said Tuesday. “It’s just driving a wedge between a lot of people in the community.

“It’s a tool to get more revenue, but it’s not the best tool,” she said. “I don’t even think it’s a good tool.”

Thompson’s comments came after a formal decision by the board Monday night. Board member Keith Cook had proposed asking the county commissioners to put on the ballot the question of setting a tax for the Orange school district.

A specific date for a referendum wasn’t part of the motion. Cook said Tuesday that he believed the spring of 2003 would have been the appropriate time, while Thompson said board members’ understanding was that it could have been as soon as November’s general election.

The tax would be similar to the district tax in place in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district for several decades.

Thompson seconded Cook’s motion, but she then joined five other board members in a 6-1 vote against it. Thompson said Tuesday she seconded the motion simply to get it to the next step, a vote.

The six ‘No’ votes were from Thompson, Bob Bateman, Susan Halkiotis, David Kolbinsky, Delores Simpson and Brenda Stephens.

“Ultimately, this district tax business would do more damage than good,” said Stephens, who had been a supporter of putting it on the ballot.

Bateman and Kolbinsky have consistently opposed the district tax as an additional burden on the residents of the county school district, and groups such as the Citizens for a Sound Economy have weighed in against it as well. That group sent a letter to local candidates on Aug. 2, asking them to sign a “No District Tax” pledge, and Bateman signed the letter on behalf of the group.

The vote comes about a month before the Sept. 10 school board election, which will include six candidates vying for four seats on the county school board. The district tax has been an issue in the race so far, with candidate Randy Copeland making the phrase “No District Tax” a prominent part of his campaign signs.

“I congratulated them last night, because they think on their feet,” Kolbinsky said, referring to the board members who had previously supported the district tax. “The district tax was a loser.

“Even bond referendums for schools don’t pass in this part of the county,” he said. “I think sometimes [residents] up here cast protest votes.

“I think the handwriting was on the wall, that anybody that was going to support a district tax wasn’t going to get re-elected to the board,” Kolbinsky said. “They saw which way the political trends were blowing.”

Cook is running for a seat on the Orange County Commissioners, but he still would have two more years on the school board if he fails to win a commissioner’s seat.

Cook said Tuesday he was disappointed with the board’s vote. He said he considered the district tax a “dead issue” for now, although he said he expects it will come back up in the future.

“I accept it, because I’m a member of a seven-person board, but I was disappointed that we decided we won’t move forward,” he said. “It got to be an issue on everybody’s mind. But to me, it reminds me of the long time we worked to get the impact fee. Just think about where we would be without those monies to help us with our new facilities.”

The county collects impact fees applied to newly constructed homes, with the money earmarked for school construction.

Thompson said she doesn’t support the district tax now and won’t in the future.

“I don’t think it’s an equitable way to generate dollars for the school system,” she said. “I just hope, now that this is off the table, that people can come together behind schools. We could have done a lot of damage to the entire community on this one issue and spent years trying to heal the damage.”