
{"id":5851,"date":"2009-05-14T06:47:29","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T14:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=5851"},"modified":"2009-05-14T06:47:29","modified_gmt":"2009-05-14T14:47:29","slug":"manager-recommends-no-tax-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/05\/14\/manager-recommends-no-tax-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Manager recommends no tax increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Carrboro Board of Aldermen got its first look at Town Manager Steve Stewart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $19.1 million fiscal 2010 recommended operating budget on Tuesday, which includes a revenue-neutral property tax rate of 58.94 cents per $100 of property valuation. <\/p>\n<p>While the tax rate provides no increase in revenue for the town, taxpayers could see an increase in their tax bills, depending on how the recent revaluation affected their property values. <\/p>\n<p>The budget includes $19,075,434 in recommended general fund expenditures and revenues, with property and sales tax accounting for 73 percent of revenues. The budget year begins July 1. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Town officials expect sales tax revenues to decrease by more than 9 percent in the coming fiscal year in addition to a significant reduction in grant funds from the state, equaling about 2 cents on the property tax rate. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hopeful that we will do better than this, but every month for the past number of months we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen a decline overall, so we want to be very conservative and very safe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stewart said. However, he added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Locally, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing better than much of the state.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The recommended 58.94 cent tax rate was adjusted down from the fiscal 2009 rate of 68.63 cents to account for the recent property revaluation. This year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s revaluation produced a tax base of nearly $1.9 billion, compared with about $1.6 billion in fiscal 2009. <\/p>\n<p>Stewart said that while the tax base is larger than that of last year, the adjusted tax rate would level out town revenues from property taxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get any more money out of the revaluation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. The town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s key interests in creating a budget, Stewart said, were to avoid a tax-rate increase while maintaining current service levels and active employees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 jobs and benefits and continuing with long-term planned capital initiatives.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The economic crisis is felt by everybody in this community, and putting this budget together we tried to be very sensitive to that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stewart said.<br \/>\nThe budget represents an increase of $595,059 over fiscal year 2009. The increase includes non-recurring revenue and expenditure increases in installment proceeds to purchase vehicles and equipment, a transfer from the capital reserve fund to finance street resurfacing and income generated from recurring revenues.<br \/>\nTo keep the tax rate down, Stewart recommended that only the Human Services Grant Funding program be expanded, with an increase of about $10,000.<br \/>\nStewart also recommended the temporary suspension of the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pay-for-performance plan.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No town employee would receive any salary increase,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stewart said. He added the town wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see an increase in health insurance rates because town staff put out a request for proposals on health insurance plans.<br \/>\nStewart also recommended the town continue a soft freeze on vacant positions.<br \/>\nAccording to Stewart, the town could potentially fill vacant police officer positions with grants from within the federal economic stimulus plan. Other opportunities from the stimulus plan include possible funding for sidewalk projects, bus shelters, bike lanes, fire substation funding and more.<br \/>\nBoard members said they were pleased with the budget and commended Stewart for preparing a budget that included a revenue-neutral tax rate while maintaining services.<br \/>\nBoard member Dan Coleman said Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget should serve as a model for other municipalities.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty remarkable to be able to maintain the status quo,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d board member Lydia Lavelle said.<br \/>\nThe town will hold a public hearing on the manager\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommended budget on May 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Carr-boro Town Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan Dickson Staff Writer The Carrboro Board of Aldermen got its first look at Town Manager Steve Stewart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $19.1 million fiscal 2010 recommended operating budget on Tuesday, which includes a revenue-neutral property tax rate of 58.94 cents per $100 of property valuation. While the tax rate provides no increase in revenue for the town,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5854,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5851\/revisions\/5854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}