Public safety, personnel costs push Waynesville tax increase
In the second split budget vote in the last four years, Waynesville’s Town Council approved a property tax hike of 3.98 cents to address mounting capital needs and maintain competitive employee compensation packages meant to reduce costly turnover.
“There are things we need, and I’m differentiating between wants [and] needs that are essential to maintaining the high level of service this community deserves,” said Council Member Jon Feichter during a June 11 meeting. “The amount of revenue that we receive under the current tax rate is insufficient to pay for the things that are essential.”
Feichter explained that there are only two ways to solve that problem — raise taxes, or rein in spending. He expressed confidence in staff’s efforts to cut costs, leaving only one solution. The amount of the proposed increase, however, left Council divided.
Council Member Anthony Sutton continued to push for higher starting salaries for police officers. Currently, it’s about $42,000. Council proposed $47,000. Sutton wanted $48,000. Feichter wanted even more.
“I do struggle with what it will take to get there this year. In the short term, we should be shooting for $49,000,” Feichter said, adding that he’d be comfortable with an increase somewhere above $47,000 with the express understanding that next year Council would aim for $49,000.
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Over the past year, the Waynesville Police Department lost three officers to the Haywood County Sheriff’s office, one to the Sylva Police Department, one to Asheville and another to the probation and parole department. Feichter explained that it costs 1.5 times an officer’s annual salary to replace an officer.
The town currently spends more than 70% of its general fund revenue on the personnel who provide the services the town provides. Another big chunk of the tax increase is devoted to hiring four more firefighters — a process that began in 2016. Mayor Gary Caldwell was adamant that the town move forward with bolstering the fire department’s roster.
Council Member Julia Freeman, Council’s lone Republican, expressed support for some of the budget items and said she would have supported an increase of up to 2.5 cents, but as the proposed budget was well above that level, she said she wouldn’t be voting for the budget.
Chuck Dickson, perceived as one of Council’s more liberal members, has counterintuitively become its greatest anti-tax advocate.
After property reappraisal values spiked in 2021, Waynesville was faced with a budgeting choice. At the time, the property tax rate was 49.57 cents, with the revenue-neutral rate around 41.27 cents. The proposed budget was 45.45 cents, which through debate was whittled down to 43.92 cents and passed. Dickson, along with Feichter, voted against that budget; although the property tax rate was cut from 49.57 cents to 43.92 cents, some property owners saw higher tax bills due to the increased property values — essentially, a tax increase.
“I’ve said how I feel about this several times,” Dickson said during the June 11 budget discussion. “We’re raising electric rates on our customers by 7%. That’s a lot of money. We’re assessing a stormwater fee, and again the low- and middle-income folks, the folks on fixed incomes, the folks that really can’t afford this tax increase are the ones that are going to be paying for this. I can afford it, we can all afford it here, but there’s plenty of people in the town that can’t afford this and I would rather wait until next year with the revaluation year. Some of the property values might go up on the commercial properties and things might stabilize a little better so that we could do what we need to do without raising taxes.”
Next year, Haywood County’s state-mandated property reappraisal will be complete. On June 17, Haywood County Tax Assessor Judy Hickman presented commissioners with an update on the process, telling them to expect another double-digit percentage increase in the true market value of all properties in the county, which could average up to 37%.
That will put Waynesville right where it was in 2021, with another budgeting choice — go revenue-neutral by cutting the property tax rate to a level that will generate the same amount of money as this year’s tax rate or stay slightly above revenue-neutral to increase general fund revenues to pay for the town’s long list of needs.
At the end of the discussion, Caldwell, Feichter and Sutton had coalesced around an increase of 3.78 cents, to 47.7 cents, but Feichter pushed Council to increase it slightly, in order to put an end to complaints about an unusual issue — the shabby state of the town’s trash cans.
The late addition to the proposed rate, two-tenths of one cent, will generate roughly $30,000 for the town and cost the average homeowner with a $250,000 house an additional $5 per year.
Caldwell, Feichter and Sutton voted for the budget, which contrary to incorrect reporting in The Waynesville Mountaineer did not contain a 4-cent increase, but instead the 3.98 cents agreed to by the majority of Council. Dickson and Freeman voted no.
