Commission Delivers State Of County

CHARLOTTE, NC– “Mecklenburg County is strong, the state of our County is strong,” said County Commission Chair, Trevor Fuller.

Mecklenburg County Commission Chair Trevor Fuller says the county is growing in jobs, and development, but still falling behind in early childhood education with only 40 % of 3rd graders reading at a 3rd grade level.

“That’s just unacceptable,” said Fuller.

Fuller proposed a Universal Pre-K. The program would cost $29 million dollars with no clear funding source. It would be rolled out in three phases over at least three years.

“I think it will be expensive however to his credit the chairman says he’s not going to raise taxes to spend that,” said Commissioner Jim Puckett.

For the first time GOP commissioners gave a Republican response to the address, proposing a one cent tax decrease.

“We set the tax rate based on our anticipated need if there’s excess revenue that means we collected more out of your pocket then we should have,” said Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour.

GOP commissioners say that revenue should go back to taxpayers.

“I certainly don’t want to give it to CMS who has been funded in extraordinary high levels for many years and we continue to see failure,” said Commissioner Puckett.

CMS received an extra $26.8 million from the county in the latest budget.

Puckett thinks the district should get one lump sum and be forced to prioritize its budget.

“They are not forced to prioritize and do the right thing that’s part of what we would like to do,” said Puckett.

Commissioners and school board members recently started working on a budget plan for next year.

“We haven’t finalized anything about how we’re going to do that but it’s clear it’s going to be significant portion of our budget,” said Fuller.

The county receives $45 million a year in federal money to pay for Pre-K programs. Right now more than 3,000 children are on waiting lists.