3-A Wednesday, June 14, 2000 Single Copies 50$ County unveils budget Sales tax shows sharp drop from prior years’ figures BY DERRICK ARMSTEAD Staff Writer Even with a tax base increase of over $30 million, Chowan County’s 2000-01 budget remains hampered by a lack of increase in the tax rate and sales tax revenues, which is a situation that County Manager Cliff Copeland believes should be addressed. Copeland, referring to next year’s prime property (land, indus try, homes) $741 million tax base, states that the single-year jump is one of, if not the largest, in the county’s history. “This increase of $32,903,382 is the largest increase in my twenty years as county manager at least to my recollection, ’’said Copeland. “My point on this particular is sue is that this is a lot of growth. Each year it would have to have to have been a two to three million dollar increase.” Furthermore, Copeland stated that the “(county) commission needs to realize the lack of growth in sales tax revenue.” Copeland added, “normally we get five to seven percent increase...our sales tax revenues are not growing. The sales tax revenue that Copeland alludes to shows a sig nificant decline when viewed in a side-by-side comparison of March 31, 1999 ($194,950) and March 31, 2000, with the latter having only $183,955 reported. “This is an absolute decline of $11,000 in sales tax collection,” Copeland said. Meanwhile, the tax rate of $.69 cents per $100 of valuation remains unchanged. Based on the 2000-01 budget, there is also an increase in Emer gency Medical Services (EMS) rev enues of $128,500, which will be reinvested back into the EMS pro gram via the hiring of four addi tional Emergency Medical Tech nicians (EMT); a move that should improve daytime service in Chowan County. Doug Belch, Director, Chowan County EMS, provided insight on the current plight faced by his or ganization. “For some reason this year, it See BUDGET On Page 12-A School system looks at ways to combat teacher shortage BY REBECCA BUNCH Editor Years ago, such a thing as a teacher shortage would have been almost unheard of - but today it is a grim reality for school systems across the country which are scrambling to fill staff vacancies. Particularly hard hit have been the areas of special education, math and science. The Edenton-Chowan school sys tem is no exception. John Guard, its director of human relations, said that the local schools currently have 20 vacancies to fill, many of them due to increasing numbers of retirees leaving their jobs. “I suppose you could say it’s the ‘graying’ effect,” said Guard. “We and many other school systems are seeing lots of the Baby Boomers near retirement age, and with fewer college students with degrees in things like math and science going into teaching, that has made things very interesting.” Guard said that the low pay re ceived in the past by North Caro lina teachers has been part of the problem. He noted that many stu dents, particularly those who have degrees in math or science-related fields, quickly learn they can make much better salaries with jobs in the private sector. In fact, the number of those turn ing to teaching as a lifetime career has continued to decline, in sharp contrast to the world of the 1930’s and 40’s when it was relatively easy to secure large numbers of teach ers in the public schools - an occu pation that those whose lives had been shaken by the Depression viewed as a way to secure a re spectable occupation with lots of job security, although the pay wasn’t much to brag about. Then, in the 1950’s and 60’s the “Baby Boomers” graduating from college flooded the education field, leaving few vacancies. That was particularly true of women, for whom teaching and nursing were still considered among a narrow field of professional positions open to them. The late 60’s and 70’s Saw more men entering the field. And now, as these Baby Boomers prepare to call it a day, many col lege graduates no longer think of the classroom as a desirable place to spend their work years. And so, Guard said, school ad ministrations are increasingly re sorting to innovative strategies to attract enough qualified applicants to Ml existing vacancies. One of tho ’