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Guilford County's public hearing on the budget is 5:30 p.m. Thursday during the commissioners meeting (Agenda here
). Speakers have two minutes apeice to make their cases for cutting or adding stuff to the 2008-09 budget.

So far, the commissioners haven't had much to say publicly on what they want to budget to look like.

But what do you want? Better education? Less crime? Better parks? Tighter bureaucracy?

Interestingly, those are things that folks campaign on when trying to get elected. Now's the time to see how the people you voted in office line up with their promises.

So come up with a sharp two minutes on what you want and show up at the meeting Thursday.

More than 300 people are expected at a memorial service for Greg Niles tomorrow.

If that's not a testament to how much a guy is well known, loved and respected, I don't know what is.

Niles died suddenly on Saturday of an aneurism while enjoying an afternoon at the pool. News of his untimely passing sent ripples through Guilford County. He would have turned 45 years old this month.

Republican Linda Shaw is coming to the end of her term as Republican National Committeewoman from North Carolina, a post she has held since 1992. Shaw has decided not to run for another four years, so she'll step down as one of the country's top Republican honchos after this summer's National Republican Convention.

That does not mean, however, that she's ready to give up her other gig.

Shaw, 68, is a county commissioner with two years left on her term and plans to run for re-election in 2010.

Still, as news filtered out she had decided to step down from her national post, inquiries had come about whether she was ready to retire from her county seat.

"I love being a county commissioner," Shaw said. "And I do plan to run for one more term, maybe two."

Shaw said she'll attend her last RNC meeting this summer but does not plan to attend the convention where Republicans will officially make Sen. John McCain their nominee.

Arts and schools supporters are expected to show up to tomorrow's public hearing on the 2008-09 Guilford County budget.

But Commissioner Melvin "Skip" Alston seemed to believe that the public hearing is an irrelevant affair.

"It's just basically a dog and pony show," he said Monday. "The school board will have their people come out and support the school board's budget, and the arts people will ask for their funding."

He said that local arts groups, which were unfunded in the current budget, may have the wrong idea for 2008-09 funding.

"I think they were misled that they would be put in the budget as a line item," Alston said.

And other scuttlebutt gives the impression that the Board of Commissioners might look to give something extra to other departments instead of schools.

Namely, EMS, public health and the sheriff's office.

Commissioner Linda Shaw said that some attention might be spent on those other departments this year.

"With the sheriff and DSS, they’ve put everything on the back burner," she said about funding for those departments in recent budgets, "and I don’t see how in the world we’re going to be able to give the schools what they want."

The school board asked for $15.8 million. Some commissioners have said that schools will only see $8 million.

"I do not agree with the level of funding for the schools," Shaw said. County Manager David McNeill recommended $12.5 million for schools in his budget.

Meanwhile, Chairman Kirk Perkins is talking with commissioners individually about the budget, he said earlier this week.

"What a chairman does right now, he’s looking for common ground and I’ve got to find enough common ground," he said. It takes the support of at least six commissioners to pass the budget.

"There are probably three votes each for four different budgets, give or take," Perkins said Monday.

He wouldn't go into what budgets are being discussed, or which commissioners support them.

"I'm not trying to sound coy, I’m still looking at options," Perkins said.

Perkins' statement was echoed by Commissioner John Parks, who was noncommittal on what he supports. Parks did say all the departments have needs, mentioning specifically the proposed health clinic for southeast Greensboro, deputies for the sheriff's office and increased needs at the social services department.

"My mind’s not made up on anything at this point," he said, "we’ll see how it all unfolds."

Monday night city council members will roll up their sleeves and get into the budget debate. And yet another key decision may come down to a few swing votes on the council.

Councilman Robbie Perkins is working to undo a uneasy 5-4 council decision to not increase the city's tax rate next year. He's going to propose a tax increase of about a penny.

Councilwoman Trudy Wade, who has been brainstorming all kinds of ways the city could save money, put the "hold the line" tax rate on the table earlier this spring.

Council members Mike Barber, Mary Rakestraw, Zack Matheny and Sandra Anderson Groat voted to keep the taxes flat. Council members Perkins, T. Dianne Bellamy-Small, Goldie Wells and Mayor Yvonne Johnson voted against the measure.

Later, a majority of council agreed upon enough budget cuts to make the "no new taxes" plan a reality.

But the uneasy truce started to show cracks when Greensboro residents picked apart the budget. Should we really put off paving 12 miles of roadways to save $2 million, when the same work may cost much more money the following year? What about those flower beds the city plans to abandon to save $400,000 on landscaping costs?

Enter Perkins, who was skeptical about this "hold the line" business from the beginning. He says the city will pay for this planned one-year relief in taxes.

Assuming Perkins can get Johnson, Wells and Bellamy-Small on his side again, his only obstacle is that crucial fifth vote.

Here's how Mayor Pro Tem Sandra Anderson Groat or Councilman Zack Matheny could become the most important people in city government.

Both can be council wild cards. Matheny, a first term councilman, is still working out his positions on various issues. When the "no new taxes" issue first arose, Matheny said he was interested in exploring ways to save money. He wanted to see whether the city could do it effectively.

WIth Matheny on vaca and unreachable this week, I can't say whether he is considering Perkin's arguments.

As for Groat, she is decidedly on the fence right now. Being a builder and a business owner, she has experienced the current economic downturn first hand. She said the city needs to cut back when citizens cut back.

On the other hand, she understands that delaying things like street paving may cost everyone more later.

There's no telling whether other council members might reconsider their stance on the issue. But clearly Groat and Matheny will be the ones to watch as the budget debate continues.

After Monday night's budget work session with the Greensboro city council, several city staffers were feeding their stress with handfuls of Oreo cookies.

I can't say I blame them. There are less than 20 days left before a balanced budget must be approved. The intended budget approval date -- June 17 -- is just days away. And yet, the budget is still kind of squishy.

The hanging issues:

-- A half million dollar deficit. The city needs to come up with $400,000 for the library system (money they thought was coming from the county) and $100,000 for unanticipated cost increases for the Guilford County Animal Shelter.
Council members are lobbying their county counterparts to hand over the $400,000 promised to Greensboro's libraries. But the county commissioners have budget problems of their own.
There was some discussion at one point about using a housing and community development fund to cover the deficit. But that raises another issue...

-- A new day center for homeless residents. Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small has been working with city staff on a plan for a place that can provide services for local homeless people, a place for them to get their mail delivered, showers, etc.
She has support from other council members, who would like to see the center started next year. But if the excess housing and community development money is tapped to pay other needs, there won't be money for the day center.

-- Comprehensive police department review. In two weeks, a city-hired consultant will complete a review of the police department structure and services.
Council would like to see the report soon, so they can make possible changes to the department's budget. They hope to get the consultant in before they end of the month, but they might have to pass some version of the budget before they see his report.

-- The capital improvements program. The council has run out of time at several meetings to go over this issue. They will try to get to it at their briefing Tuesday night.

-- Using city reserves. Although council is within its right to use the city's savings account to fund various projects (in this case, Monday night they decided to use it to pave roads and plant flowers), it's contrary to the city's plan to build the reserves.
City Manager Mitchell Johnson has warned council against relying on this as a funding method.

If you look up Guilford County's recently-named interim planning director, Nancy Roy, you might find a woman with two
names.

Roy goes by "Nancy Fiorillo" in Moore County and everywhere else.

Why the distinction?

"So I don't want to have to spell my name a million times a day," she said.

There is an obvious difference between the two. "Fiorillo" could play more tricks on the ear than "Roy". Roy is the name she carried through much of her professional career. Fiorillo is a name she picked up through marriage.

Either way, 'Scoop welcomes both Nancy Roy and Nancy Fiorillo to the county. And we thank her for picking a name that's easy to spell.

As an aside, Roy is looking for places in Greensboro while she steers the planning ship.

"If you know anybody who has a short term rental, let me know," she said. We hear she's looking around Fisher Park.

Some Guilford commissioners are already saying that the "Gang of Six" might pass the 2008-09 budget.

They are: Democrats Kay Cashion, Paul Gibson, John Parks and Kirk Perkins, along with Republicans Billy Yow and Mike Winstead.

But who passes the $587 million budget is as important as why they pass the budget. And we're catching up with a few commissioners this week.

Kay Cashion wants money for schools and nonprofits, Melvin "Skip" Alston thinks his vote won't matter, Steve Arnold is let down by how this year's budget process has been handled, Paul Gibson said that the bond debt is built-in expense and Carolyn Coleman is interested in getting funding for a health clinic in southeast Greensboro, the arts and a few other things.

In the current budget County Manager David McNeill planned to save $750,000 in salary expense through employee attrition and hiring freezes. For 2008-09, his reccomended budget projects saving $1.9 million through the same means.

McNeill's budget has a 5.5-cent property tax rate increase, though several commissioners hope to keep that hike under 5 cents per $100 valuation. Most commissioners seem to believe that a property tax rate hike is inevitable since Guilford County voters passed a bunch of bonds in May.

In fact, McNeill's budget broke out that figure - 3.43 cents per $100 valuation.

This week, Perkins began meeting and speaking with each commissioner to achieve a consensus on the budget.

What some commissioners are saying:

One day, I hope someone names a traffic flow device after me.

It took Keith Holiday eight years as mayor to have the rotary at Greene and McGee streets named after him.
Here's the honoree, posing with his 4-year-old grandson Spencer.

Guilford County Commissioner Linda Shaw was granted, for the second time in her life, an award that most North Carolina residents are lucky to receive just once in a lifetime.

Shaw received the honor of The Order of the Long Leaf Pine during the North Carolina Republican convention earlier this month when Rep. David Lewis presented the award to Shaw on behalf of Gov. Mike Easley.

Shaw's husband, Bob Shaw sent us the head's-up via email over the weekend, and said:

Linda may be the only person in the state who has received two Orders of the Long Leaf Pine by two Governors, one a Republican and one a Democrat. Gov. Jim Martin presented one to her over twenty years ago.

(hyperlink added)

From what I'm hearing on the streets, city council is getting just about everything they wanted from the city budget this year. Pretty flower beds. Fewer potholes. A new bus route out on Summit Avenue. Most importantly, looks like no new taxes.

Read more about it in my story Tuesday.

Here's how the city staff came up with the cash to balance the budget:
-- $400K for landscaping
funded from capitol reserves

-- $450K library deficit
funded by taking $350K from a housing reserve and $100K from a technology fund

-- Summit Avenue bus route
looking for federal funds first

-- $1 million for repaving
draining Powell Bill reserve

Of course, these appropriations are pending approval by city council. And they might just give it Tuesday night, deep into what could be a rather lengthy meeting.

There's a new level of security at Greensboro's city hall.

Tonight, I had to open up my bags to be checked by security before I could enter council chambers. Security folks said it was the natural progression of things. I guess it has to be, considering what the council has been up against lately.

In reporting this story yesterday, Amanda Martin, General Counsel to the North Carolina Press Association gave me this quote from Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger:

People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult to accept what they are prohibited from observing.

Some commissioners want the budget-making process to be more open. Some said they are happy with the way it is, and that there's nothing to worry about because it all comes out in public meetings anyway.

But it's your tax dollars. What do you want to hear about the process? Are you satisfied with the two budget meetings and the public hearing that the Board of Commissioners have held for the budget this year?

After a handful of talking-over-each other meetings, city council passed the budget Tuesday night with zero debate or discussion.

And they adopted it without even having the final budget numbers in black and white in front of them, the city manager says.

Through a clerical snafu, council didn't get the copy of the budget resolution being proposed by city staff.

No one asked to see it, apparently because they were informed about any last minute changes to the budget by the city manager's office the day before. Questions about the legitimacy of the adoption were raised after the fact.

"It isn't ideal government craft, and it ain’t the way we normally do things," City Manager Mitchell Johnson said.

Johnson called the UNC School of Government to double check. He was assured the vote was OK, since council was involved in the budget process.

By not questioning anything Tuesday night, Council members were trying to keep a promise to each other to NOT raise any issues that had been hashed and rehashed, Councilman Mike Barber said. Councilwoman Sandra Anderson Groat was lobbying for a 9 to 0 budget adoption, which she nearly got.

"We didn’t want the budget to unravel,” Barber said.

Technically, council legally adopted the budget. But next week they are going to adopt it again, with all the paperwork in order and the tax rate outlined before them.

All the democrats on the Guilford County Board of Directors voted in favor of a budget and a property tax rate increase in tonight's council meeting.
Commissioners passed their $287 million budget for 2008-09 with a 7-4 vote that swung entirely on Democratic commissioners Thursday. Republican Commissioners Steve Arnold, Linda Shaw, Billy Yow and Mike Winstead voted against the budget.
The budget includes a property tax rate increase of 4.6 cents per $100 valuation, which means that the owner of a $200,000 home would pay $92 more in county property taxes on the next property tax bill.
New expenses in the budget include a $10 million funding increase to Guilford County Schools, $250,000 for a health clinic in Southeast Greensboro, $100,000 to the Greensboro arts council and $75,000 for the high point arts council, along with $25,000 for the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival and $50,000 to the African American Atelier museum.

Before the budget talks began last night, the Guilford County commissioners took a short recess.

Usually the door to the meeting room and the commissioners' break room stays open during recess, but during Thursday's break, it was closed.

In North Carolina, there's a law that says if a majority of members from an elected body meet together, then it's a public meeting. If they meet together in that way and keep the door shut, then they must cite one of a few specific reasons such as a personnel matter or a business expansion, which usually pertains to incentives for companies like FedEx, RF Micro and such.

During Thursday's recess I counted four commissioners in the regular meeting room, which gave a good reason to suspect that at least six (a majority) were elsewhere. I guessed that they might be behind that closed door and asked to be let in. Commissioner Bruce Davis, who was not in the break room, said I didn't have the right to enter.

He told me that during a recess, commissioners could meet in any way they wanted.

So I grabbed County Attorney Sharron Kurtz to settle the matter. She said that if there were six commissioners there, that the group is open to the public.

We walked over to the break room, opened the door, and sure enough, there were six commissioners inside. Kurtz put a doorstop in front of the door, I popped in, said "Hi," and walked away.

Most of the time, the commissioners in that break room are just cutting up and chatting with one-another. And usually the door remains open. But in the moments leading up to passing the county's budget - arguably the biggest decision that commissioners make in a year - there's good reason to expect openness from elected officials. Particularly during a quiet process leading up to passing the budget.

FYI, here's a little primer on open meetings law in North Carolina from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. Pay attention to question nine in particular. For you wonks, here's the law.