I sent this e-mail to Paul Long, County Finance Director, asking him to clarify the letter submitted to the Daily News Journal by fifteen county commissioners.
Mr. Long:
I have been attempting to figure out how the General School Fund increased by $11.3 for the 1999-2000 fiscal year. I have previously called your office and was told that the appropriations for the 1999-2000 fiscal year are $120,474,312. I then looked at the appropriations for the 1998-1999 fiscal year and find an amount of $113,900,647. I got that number from the information handed out at the public hearing on the budget.
Can you clear this up for me? I obviously have a wrong number somewhere. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Andrew C. Fowler
Below is the response I received from Mr. Long.
I can only speculate - this may have come by comparing the original budget for 98-99 (110,187,990) with the original request for 99-2000 (122,637,605), or the request with the 8 cent increase (121,308,995). Neither of those produce an increase of exactly 11.3 million, but the latter is close.