Commissioners approve budget, tax increase

The Wayne County Board of Commissioners approved a budget plan Tuesday that includes a tax increase the board says will help move the county forward — and also make some much-needed, and long overdue, improvements.

Board members heard comments on the proposed budget during a hearing at their regular meeting Tuesday. A final vote came after a lengthy closed session.

The tax increase dropped a bit — moving the county tax rate from .7175 to .7075 — after County Manager Craig Honeycutt and his staff worked to find more belt-tightening.

Among the eliminated expenditures was $15,000 slated for Wings Over Wayne, which has been postponed until 2023, as well as savings in several other areas.

Revenue increases were also projected at the health department and from the jail fees, Honeycutt said.

This will be the first time in many years that the county budget will not include a tax cut, he added.

“In the last 10 years, taxes have dropped … about 10 cents,” Honeycutt said.

Commissioner Chairman Wayne Aycock said that the county commission’s focus on cutting taxes was perhaps short-sighted, forcing necessary projects and repairs down the road.

“It was probably a mistake (to cut taxes),” Aycock said. “We should have left it ‘no tax increase.’ It has come back to bite us.”

Now, the school and facilities’ expenses as well as concerns over competitive salaries, are not just wants, but needs.

“Our needs have outgrown our funding,” Aycock said. “If this county is going to move forward, we do not have a choice.”

Commissioner Chris Gurley agreed, adding that the last two boards reduced taxes.

He added that the Sheriff Carey Winders Detention Center was paid for with cash, an indication that fiscal responsibility has made the tax cuts possible.

Part of the reason for the need for a property tax increase, he added, was rejection of a quarter-cent sales tax increase.

“The sales tax has been tried three times,” he said. “What people did not realize is that that quarter cent will bring in $2.4-$2.6 million a year.”

Those funds come from shoppers, not just property owners, he added.

“Everybody pays it, and we are all benefitting from it,” Gurley said.

Without the sales tax hike, a property tax increase was inevitable, he added.

The additional cuts and revenue pinpointed by the county staff put the increase at .044, which would generate about $3,488,065 in property taxes and $436,253 in personal property taxes.

All of that money, Honeycutt said, will be used not for county operations, but for debt service.

The budget plan features about $58 million in new construction — including a jail and Health Department and Department of Health and Human Services building.

All three of those buildings are in dire need of repair, the commissioners said.

Commissioner Barbara Aycock said she and other commissioners toured the Health Department and DHS.

“They are in terrible shape,” she said.

The commissioners agreed that the condition of the buildings and the jail was a “liability waiting to happen.”

In addition to the school building needs and the facilities concerns, Gurley and Barbara Aycock said sewer issues are becoming critical as well.

“We have got to look at a regional sewer system,” Gurley said.

Barbara Aycock said business development cannot occur if there is no functioning sewer system.

“They aren’t going to be able to come because we don’t have the sewer capacity,” she said. “Sewer is going to be a huge issue (in every community).”

Gurley pointed out that there will be “billions of dollars coming from D.C.” for infrastructure projects, but that all of those funds will be encumbered or have stipulations as well.

Wayne County’s future development requires attention to the sewer concerns not just in the northern end of the county, but in the southern portion as well, Commissioner Antonio Williams said.

“Mount Olive’s issues have to be addressed,” Williams said.

Commissioner Bevan Foster said the county has to get the facilities work done and the sewer plan in place before officials “are forced” to get it done.

Spending now is critical if the county is going to grow and better-serve its residents, he added, citing school and infrastructure improvements in other counties as evidence that Wayne County is behind in taking those steps forward.

Also planned in the new budget are salary increases for critical personnel like Sheriff’s Department, detention center and EMS. County officials say a salary study has indicated that Wayne County’s salaries are significantly lower than those of surrounding municipalities and that an increase is necessary to stay competitive.

Also slated for increases are the non-elected personnel in the Register of Deeds office.

Those proposed raises came as a result of another salary study, Honeycutt said, which revealed that the salaries were about $2,000 lower than those in neighboring communities.

A 3 percent increase will be given across the board for other county employees as well.

The idea is to retain “good people,” Honeycutt said, and to stop the turnover in county departments as quality personnel leave Wayne County for higher salaries elsewhere.

What is still up in the air, however, is a proposed sewer rate increase.

Honeycutt said the county would mirror whatever increase the city of Goldsboro, which handles the county water and sewer, passes along to its customers.

Right now, he said, that looks like about 15 percent.

Gurley urged residents to consider supporting a sales tax increase in the future.

“Please trust your elected officials to spend money wisely,” he said. “A quarter-cent sales tax can alleviate property tax increases in the future.”

During the public comment period, three county residents, including former county commissioner Ed Cromartie, spoke against the tax increase, citing elderly residents on fixed incomes who cannot afford to absorb the tax hike.

“I know what I have in my checkbook and what I have to live on,” Cromartie said.

He urged the board to consider the construction projects and to choose — “the ones you can afford under the current tax rate.”

Resident Shirley Edwards said the commissioners were turning their backs on the senior citizens who elected them with the promise to keep tax rates low.

She said the county should not be in the position of needing to accomplish so many major construction projects in the same year, adding that it was “poor planning.”

“You don’t do stuff like that,” she said. “If you do, you will go to the poor house and take everyone with you.”