CHAPEL HILL - CHAPEL HILL -- At least three Orange County commissioners now say they want to keep the Carrboro Branch and Cedar Grove libraries open.

The commissioners discussed a number of issues in next year's budget at their work session Thursday night. In addition to the library, they included construction of the Carrboro High arts wing, budget requests from Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools and possible property tax decreases.

They didn't vote on anything. Three more budget work sessions are scheduled. The next will be Thursday at the Southern Human Services Center.

ON LIBRARY CLOSINGS: The county needs to find $250,000 to keep the two branch libraries open.

"The outlook is good for keeping those libraries," Commissioner Alice Gordon said Friday. "I think most, if not all of us, want to do that."

Gordon and board Chairwoman Valerie Foushee both said they support the libraries Thursday. Commissioner Mike Nelson, a former Carrboro mayor, had already said he wants to keep the libraries open.

Closing them would save $45,373, according to County Manager Laura Blackmon's proposed $177.6 million county budget.

The county would need to find $250,000 to keep them open because the budget also proposes moving staff from the closed libraries to the new main county library opening this fall in Hillsborough.

Gordon asked why the new library needs more staff. Blackmon said the building has two floors and special areas, such as children's and teen's areas, that need to be monitored.

Commissioner Steve Yuhasz asked county staff to provide a list of ways to fund the libraries at the next work session. Gordon said she doesn't want to raise taxes to fund the libraries.

(The Chapel Hill Public Library, run by the Town of Chapel Hill, is not part of the county system.)

ON THE CHS ARTS WING: Commissioners asked for more information on how building the arts wing next year would affect the county's debt capacity, and how interest-free bond money from the federal stimulus package might be used.

"If there's any interest-free money around, I want to know about it," Gordon said.

State officials are deciding how the bond money can be used, but Superintendent Neil Pedersen said it could provide $5 million, enough to build the $4.5 million arts wing.

Budget Director Donna Coffey said the county's debt service payments for next year total $25.7 million, which makes up 14.5 percent of the overall budget. The county has set a debt-capacity limit of 15 percent, but it could potentially exceed that limit for one or two years without consequences.

"If it's a one- or two-year blip, [the state] would not look at it negatively," Coffey said.

The arts wing became the city school district's top priority last month when the commissioners said they could not fund a new elementary school in the Northside neighborhood. Class sizes are already going up because of state budget cuts, so the new school may not be needed as soon as officials thought.

ON SCHOOL BUDGETS: Blackmon's budget reduces school funding to 48.1 percent of the budget, a decrease of $3.1 million.

The per-pupil allocation drops $104, from $3,200 to $3,096.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro special district tax drops to a revenue neutral 18.84 cents per $100.

Officials from both school districts asked commissioners not to make any further cuts, given major cuts at the state level.

"The Board of County Commissioners really is our safety net," Orange County Schools Superintendent Patrick Rhodes said. "The state funding cuts will be devastating and will be lasting. We just can't afford any further reductions."

Pedersen said the proposed county budget would cut $1.2 million from the district's budget request, a fraction of the cuts it faces from the state. He said the county's cut alone will likely eliminate 14 positions, including the six teachers who provide world language instruction to kindergarten and first-grade classes.

Commissioners expressed support for the schools but did not commit to any funding levels.

"I would like to do as much as we can for the schools," Gordon said.

ON PROPERTY TAXES: The board had asked Blackmon what it would take to lower the proposed county tax rate to below the revenue neutral rate in her budget.

The proposed budget includes a tax rate of 85.8 cents per $100 of assessed property value. The owner of a $250,000 house would pay $2,145 in county taxes next year.

Blackmon and Coffey provided statistics on lowering the tax rate another 0.5 cents to 2.4 cents per $100.

An additional 0.5 cent cut ($12.50 savings on a $250,000 property) would cost the county $752,676 in funding, including $362,037 in school funding.

An additional 2.4 cent cut ($60 savings on a $250,000 property) would cost the county $3.6 million in funding, including $1.7 million in school funding.

Commissioners did not discuss the tax cuts at Thursday's meeting.

campbell.colin.a@gmail.com

WHAT'S NEXT

The Orange County Board of Commissioners' next budget work session is 7 p.m. Thursday at the Southern Human Services Center, 2501 Homestead Road in Chapel Hill.