The proposed budget also includes cuts to nearly every department due to a $29 million deficit.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A public hearing is scheduled for Thursday to give Mecklenburg County residents an opportunity to speak on the county’s latest budget proposal.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Government Center in Uptown. The board is scheduled to hold a straw vote on May 29 with a budget adoption expected on June 3.
The Board of County Commissioners unveiled its proposed budget last week. It includes a property tax increase and cuts to nearly every department. County Manager Dena Diorio said those choices come from a $29 million deficit, largely due to a sales tax growth leveling off after the pandemic.
The proposed budget includes $0.96 property tax increase for Mecklenburg County. For the median home price of $377,000, that would mean an increase of $36.19 per year.
Diorio said this, along with cuts, is something they had seen coming since last year.
“This is probably going to be sustained for a while. We’re seeing sales tax increases of less than 3% a year, and that has been the revenue source that we’ve used to really fund a lot of the growth that we needed to do in the county,” she said. “Not having that kind of growth has really put us in a position where we have to make some of these difficult decisions.”
Cuts across the board
Nonprofits will be hit especially hard, with roughly $6 million in funding cuts. The budget would also practically eliminate the community service grants program, saving an extra $2 million.
Diorio said this was not made in a blanket cut. Rather, each organization was judged individually on a rubric basis.
“We also looked at all the nonprofits that we currently fund on a regular basis and looked at things like performance, utilization of county dollars, department recommendation cost per individual, and really made some decisions about those that were, in our perspective, not doing as well as some of the other nonprofits,” Diorio said.
The fund balance, or the county’s rainy-day fund, would also see a massive cut. Diorio is recommending $30 million, which would be the lowest appropriation in her tenure.
Education impacts
Education is not receiving the same treatment; the recommended budget fulfills exactly what the CMS Board of Education asked for, including a $28 million increase over last year’s allocation.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) is asking the county for more than $667 million in operating funds, most of which would go to teacher salaries.
“Superintendent Dr. Hill is trying to do is to make sure that you can attract and retain the very best teachers, and you can only do that if you if you pay them well,” Diorio said.
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