Budget gap $3 million for Haywood County
Although it’s still early in the budget process, Interim Haywood County Manager Joel Mashburn told commissioners that requests for the FY 2018-19 budget already total more than $3 million over projected revenues.
“Most of the requests have come in very close to what they are in the current year,” said Mashburn, who last week began the process of interviewing the heads of some of the county’s smaller departments to vet their requests.
Those requests will then go before commissioners, who will in turn decide what gets funded, and what doesn’t.
Mashburn, who has only been on the job since October and will serve until a permanent county manager is hired in the next few months, said that in talking with county Finance Director Julie Davis, he learned the situation has been much more drastic in years past.
Requests of about $83 million will be balanced against projected revenues of almost $80 million, Mashburn said, noting also that a goal of the board last year was to hold or reduce the property tax rate.
“Being $3 million out of balance right now, we’ll be lucky to hold that,” he said.
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Currently at 58.5 cents per $100 in assessed property value, Haywood County’s tax rate is up from 56.65 cents the previous fiscal year.
It’s also one of the highest rates in Western North Carolina — Buncombe’s current rate is 53.9 cents, while Jackson, Macon and Swain counties to the west are three of the five lowest rates in the state, hovering well under 38 cents. The statewide average is 67 cents.
But that’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison; tax rates vary widely based on population and local circumstance, and are also dependent on prudent financial decision-making by elected officials.
On that same note, Haywood’s rate is down from a high of 61 cents in 2002, and the county’s fund balance — up from a dangerous low of just 8 percent a few years back — is now the largest it’s ever been, right around 32 percent.
Fund balance can be appropriated to fill budget holes, but it’s mainly meant to insulate county operations against unforeseen calamities that could interrupt revenue collection, or, alternatively, to help out with cash flow.
Too high a fund balance, however, means taking more than absolutely necessary from taxpayers and maintaining a rate that’s less competitive with neighboring counties. Liquidating some of that fund balance is a topic that was broached last year, but owing to the tax increase, went nowhere.
This year could be a different story, however.
Commissioner Bill Upton, who declined to stand for re-election to his fourth term on the board this year, is taking part in his last county budget process and took the opportunity to make an official budget request during a commission work session March 19.
“I haven’t spoke up strongly about anything in my 12 years,” Upton said, to chuckles from the board.
Upton wanted $150,000 for Mountain Projects that would be used to help renovate the local social services agency’s new facility on Old Asheville Highway, because Jackson County pledged to match the funds; Mountain Projects provides some services in Jackson.
Instead of adding it to the $3 million overage, commissioners decided instead to offer up a budget amendment in mid-April and pay the entire amount with fund balance, this budget year, thus keeping the request out of competition with other wants and needs for next year.
Davis, who was also at the work session, said she felt very comfortable with the request.
Mashburn said that commissioners be presented with a clearer picture of other 2018-19 budget requests in a month or so.
