This November, voters in Orange County will turn out to vote for the next president, governor, and a whole slew of state-level offices. They’ll also have a hyperlocal issue on the ballot—whether their municipal governments can issue hundreds of millions of dollars in two separate bonds.
Chapel Hill residents will decide whether to allow the town to borrow $44 million. The town council has waffled in recent discussions over whether to hold the referendum in 2024 or 2025, leading to some consternation from eager voters.
“Chapel Hill looks decisions in the eye and asks ‘do you think we can maybe talk about this over coffee every morning for the next 17 years?’” wrote the progressive Triangle BlogBlog in April.
Still, at its May 15 meeting, the Chapel Hill council unanimously agreed to a preliminary plan and timeline to place the bond on the 2024 ballot.
The draft plan calls for $15 million for affordable housing, $15 million for public buildings, $7.5 million for streets and sidewalks, $4.5 million for parks and recreation facilities, and $2 million for open space and greenways.
“This bond issuance will allow Chapel Hill to move forward on important projects without raising taxes,” said Mayor Jess Anderson during the meeting. “Voter approval allows us to borrow money for those projects at a lower rate, which is really important.”
In November of 2018, Chapel Hill voters overwhelmingly approved a $10 million affordable housing bond, but advocates at the time argued that it should have been bigger. Last year, the council passed an affordable housing plan and investment strategy that recommended the town spend $50 million over the next 5 years.
The bond will appear on the agenda for discussion at the council’s June 5 meeting, when the council will introduce the bond orders and schedule the public hearing.
Over in Hillsborough last month, Orange County’s board of commissioners officially decided to move forward with a $300 million schools bond referendum for capital improvements. The county estimates that paying for the bond will require a tax increase of 3.41 cents per $100 of valuation in the county’s 2025-26 fiscal year.
The money would be split between Orange County’s two school districts, with Orange County Schools (covering the north and west of the county) receiving about $200 million and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools receiving about $100 million.
At an April joint meeting between the commissioners and both school boards, Orange County Schools superintendent Danielle Jones pointed out the many budget challenges facing the district, including an end to pandemic-era grants from the federal government.
“While the state has the legal obligation, and the constitutional obligation, for public education they’re not even meeting half of our financial needs today…so we are dependent on local funding if we’re going to maintain our level of programming,” Jones said. “We may not be able to fund teachers the way that they should be funded, but what can we do to make sure that our teachers feel respected and valued and that we have a school community that we can be proud of?”
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board chair George Griffin also took the opportunity to thank the commissioners for their support.
“We know money’s tight and we know it’s tough times and everybody knows public education is under attack from all fronts and in that sense you’re our last hope,” Griffin said. “Not to be too dramatic about it, but right now it appears to be the case…Orange County continues to make what’s considered to be the top effort in the state to fund public education.”
While a tax increase is never popular, no organized opposition to the bond has yet emerged.
At forums for this spring’s Orange County Schools Board of Education election, most of the candidates running for three seats on the board rallied around the need for facility improvements. One candidate mentioned the persistent mold in his former office. Another said that the school she worked in had to set up trash cans to catch the water when it rained.
A 2023 report estimated that the current facility deficiency needs total $165 million in Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, including $69 million for roof replacements and $52 million for mechanical systems. The Orange County system’s current needs total $98 million, with the largest need of $29 million for electrical systems and $23 million for interior finishes.
The county commissioners will hold a public hearing on the bond on June 4.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at chase@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.
