{"id":208,"date":"2007-04-19T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-19T15:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2007\/04\/19\/county-to-seek-smaller-increase\/"},"modified":"2007-04-19T07:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-19T15:06:00","slug":"county-to-seek-smaller-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2007\/04\/county-to-seek-smaller-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"County to seek smaller increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As the county gears up for budget season, officials say they hope to limit the tax-rate increase this year.<\/p>\n<p>State law requires the county manager to submit a budget to the Board of County Commissioners by May 15 and the board to approve a budget by June 30. The board will work through budget issues at this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first regular budget work session on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>At a retreat in January, the board discussed limiting the tax-rate increase to equal the amount of debt-service payment increases.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Board Chair Moses Carey said the board would like to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153minimize the increase in the tax rate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and has given County Manager Laura Blackmon some general directions for the budget. However, Carey said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At this point, they are merely budget goals.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>According to budget director Donna Coffey, the county has seen a tax-rate increase every year for the past 18 years, with an increase of about 13 cents in the past two years.<\/p>\n<p>Coffey said most of the tax-rate increase funds schools and debt. The county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual debt payments equal about $23.4 million &#8212; $17.6 million for school facilities and $5.8 million for county facilities, according to Coffey.<\/p>\n<p>A major budget driver this year will be an increase in the number of students in the two school systems, Coffey said. In addition, increased operating costs from the opening of Carrboro High School and for Gravelly Hill Middle School, which was open for only part of this school year, will affect the budget.<\/p>\n<p>Coffey said the county is also waiting on state legislation that could bring relief to counties\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Medicaid costs.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina is the only state that requires counties to fund a percentage of non-administrative Medicaid costs. Counties pay about 5 percent of Medicaid costs, while the state funds about 33 percent and the federal government pays more than 60 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Coffey said about $3.9 million of the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s $166 million budget is dedicated to Medicaid costs.<br \/>\nThe state legislature is considering a couple of options for Medicaid relief, including a bill under which the state would take over all Medicaid costs, funded by a one-cent sales-tax increase. In addition, some legislators have suggested pushing back the expiration date on a cap on counties\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Medicaid contributions.<\/p>\n<p>Coffey said that while Orange County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153portion of Medicaid is not as significant as poorer counties\u00e2\u20ac\u2122,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it is difficult to plan a budget while waiting on such legislation.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a moving target,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan Dickson Staff Writer As the county gears up for budget season, officials say they hope to limit the tax-rate increase this year. State law requires the county manager to submit a budget to the Board of County Commissioners by May 15 and the board to approve a budget by June 30. The board [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}