CHAPEL HILL - Every year Orange County tells the county's two school boards it probably can't fund their full budget requests.

And every year the schools, particularly the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system, rally parents to plead with the commissioners to find the money to stave off budget cuts. Some parents even tell the county commissioners to raise their taxes.

Orange County has a target of spending 48.1 percent of the general fund budget on schools, which has put the county either first or second in the state in local school funding since the late 1990s, county officials say.

The county currently allocates $3,200 per pupil for a total student population of nearly 19,000 students, budget director Donna Coffey said.

With about 400 new students expected next year, the county would have to find another $1.3 million -- the equivalent of a penny on the tax rate -- to maintain the $3,200 per pupil allocation.

Commissioner Barry Jacobs said if the county wants to hold the effective tax rate steady this year it will need to look at the 48.1 percent target for school funding.

"We need to have a clear vision about how serious we are about dividing up the pie," he said. "We have tried to keep up with every school facility as it was needed, but we have fallen way behind on [other] county facilities."

Jacobs acknowledged the county could be in for an earful.

"It does pull at your heartstrings," he said. It does make you think twice [about making cuts], and we need to be prepared."

New Commissioner Steve Yuhasz said he wants to make sure if the county maintains its current funding target that it sticks to it.

In recent years the county has slightly overspent its 48.1 percent target, though exactly how much was unclear at Saturday's retreat because local education funding has included money for Durham Tech.

New board Chairwoman Valerie Foushee suggested the schools could get less money, as a percentage of the total budget, this year because of the recession.

"We serve a constituency that is larger than the school system,' she said. "Something has to give."

-- Mark Schultz