By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
Counties and towns look at raising rates
This isn’t likely to come as a shock, but it’s safe to assume your property taxes are going up.
Even though county and town managers have crafted no-tax alternatives, elected officials throughout the region have not shown an inclination toward the idea and are focusing instead on the size of increases rather than whether to have them or not.
The numbers, costs and reasoning are playing out differently in each jurisdiction, but keeping up with a growing region underpins all the arguments for a tax hike.
For Orange County, the opening of Carrboro High School and the new elementary school – along with a new senior center, justice facility expansion, a soccer complex and the Durham Technical Community College satellite campus – are driving a proposed 3.7-cent increase, raising it to 94 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
In Carrboro, moving ahead on plans for new sidewalks and improvements to town parks and facilitates led Town Manager Steve Stewart to propose a 2.86-cent increase, raising the rate from 62.4 to 65.3.
In Chapel Hill, debt service on voter-approved bonds, the opening of a new aquatics center on Homestead Road and hiring 21 additional employees led to a proposal to raise the rate 2 cents ,from 52.1 to 54.1 cents per $100 valuation.
Hillsborough residents are facing a 1.5-cent increase from 62 to 63.5, mainly to cover costs of new hires last year and improvement projects like the Eno Riverwalk.
Although the town is not projecting a major hike this year, debt service and the need for a new fire station may require hikes of five cents a year for the subsequent two years.
And in Chatham County, the cost of covering additional teachers and paying for school expansion make up more than a penny of a proposed 2-cent increase that would raise the tax rate from 59.7 cents to 61.7 cents.
In all the budgets listed above, it isn’t just the construction of new buildings that’s leading to the rate increases. Keeping up with personnel costs, including insurance increases, are adding to the drain on resources.
Carrboro, for instance, is only adding one firefighter this year, but is absorbing the increased cost of five additional firefighters added last year. The six new positions will be among a total of 15 the town will need to add to fully staff its new northern fire station.
In Chapel Hill, added police protection downtown and adding to police presence throughout town accounts for the bulk of the new employees the town says it has to hire to maintain services to residents.