Waynesville employees will likely see a 3 percent raise in their paycheck next year, if budget suggestions proffered by the town manager are approved by aldermen.

The proposed budget for 2011-12, released last week, calls for an across-the-board, cost-of-living pay raise for all town employees — the first raise for town workers in three years.

On the whole, the town seems to be on fairly solid financial footing was the message given to town board members by Town Manager Lee Galloway, suggesting that a brighter fiscal picture might yet be on the not-so-distant horizon.

The pay raise is a nod to the reality that prices on necessities are rising, while employees are still making their 2009 salaries.

“It’s just evident with prices increasing, that I knew that our employees needed some additional compensation,” said Galloway. “So that was our driving force. I felt like that was our no. 1 priority, to try to provide our employees with a little extra.”

Since public-sector finances began to tank in 2009, the town has lost eight positions, though they were all vacant, so no layoffs were needed. This year’s budget suggests cutting another one-and-a-half positions, also currently vacant. And among the important unknowns is the state of the state budget.

Galloway said that, though the town’s finances look decent, there’s no telling what could come out of the General Assembly, where the financial situation couldn’t look less decent.

“Thus far, they haven’t shown any inclination to taking the revenues from local governments or handing down unfunded mandates,” said Galloway, which are the two measures that could level an unexpected punch at the town. “But I just don’t know how they’re going to do it without just reducing the level of services provided by the state.”

But regardless of what directives come down from Raleigh, Galloway said he’s behind a pay raise, especially given their firmer footing compared to the last two years.

“All of our funds — general, water, sewer and electric — are in  stronger cash position than they were two years ago,” Galloway told aldermen at a budget workshop last week, which allows for leeway in giving a little boost to employees.

And Waynesville, in that sense, is an anomaly among its close neighbors, who aren’t yet able to pony up raises like they were pre-recession.

Just up Main Street at the historic court house, things aren’t nearly as rosy for the Haywood County commissioners. County Manager Marty Stamey laid out their proposed budget on Monday, which calls for reinstating the Christmas bonus, which has been just a memory for the last three years.

Other than that, county employees are eligible for a merit-based raise of up to one percent, but cost-of-living raises have for now become an anachronism, which concerned some commissioners.

“Everywhere you [go], gas is higher, corn is up, everything that you need to survive is going up. Maybe you can buy a piece of property cheaper, but you can’t eat and take care of your family,” said Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick. “That’s difficult and I’m concerned about that cost of living.”

But with state cuts and education needs rising, the county just won’t have the wiggle room for employee raises.

Galloway, who is spending his 18th and final year as town manager, said he believes their good fortune is down to good management by his staff and a boon from extra money, like the electricity fund.

And while this may not be the time for financial celebration, cautious optimism, he said, may not be out of order. So what better way to reward employees who pushed through the monetary valley, if the mountaintop might be coming into view.

Local government raises, bonuses at a glance

• Haywood County: In the past two years, employees were eligible for a merit-based raises up to 1-percent, but no across-the-board cost of living increase. The same is proposed this year.

• Jackson County: No raise in past two years. Nothing proposed this year. (However a pay study resulted in salary adjustments, including some quite large increases for top employees.)

• Macon County: No raise in past two years. A 3-percent increase is proposed this year.

• Swain County: No raise in past two years. Nothing proposed this year.

• Canton: Last year, a flat raise of $500. The same is proposed this year.

• Franklin: No raise two years ago. Last year employees got a one-time 3-percent bonus. An actual 4-percent increase is proposed this year.

• Maggie Valley: For the past two years, employees were eligible for a merit-based raise of up to 2 percent. A 2 percent cost-of-living raise is proposed this year.

• Sylva: Last year, employees received a 1.5 percent cost-of-living increase. This year, town leaders are considering giving those making less than $50,000 a year a flat raise rather than a percentage of their salary.

In Haywood County, the tax rate would have to bump up three cents for the county to bring in the same amount of money as last year.

Overall, the property values in the county were down following the recent revaluation, the first countywide appraisal in five years. To offset the slightly smaller tax base, the county would have to raise the tax rate from 51 to 54 cents.

County Manager Marty Stamey presented the budget to county commissioners at their meeting Monday, where he painted a picture of fiscal austerity.

“We’ve got less people working than in ‘05 and we’re doing the same amount of work, in some cases we’re doing more work,” said Stamey. “This is the new norm, doing more with less.”

Here’s what the new tax rate would mean based on how your property performed in the revaluation:

• For residents whose property values dropped by at least 5 percent, tax bills will be less.

• Those whose values were perfectly stagnant will see around a 5 percent increase. So for a home valued at $100,000 — both in 2006 and this year — the bill will go up by $27.

• Properties that increased in value will also see a hike in their tax bill by about the same percentage.

Throughout the budget process, commissioners have said they’re committed to a neutral tax rate.

“I think that’s fair because the county’s taking in the same amount of money if they’d not done a reval,” said Commissioner Kevin Ensley. “I don’t know any other way to do it, except keep [the rate] the same, and then we’d have to make a lot more cuts than we have now.”

“We’ve made cuts the last three years and it’s bare bone,” said Commissioner Bill Upton.

While the property tax side of the budget will remain constant, wilting sales revenues mean the county will still have to make some cuts. Most notably, education — both Haywood County Schools and Haywood Community College — will be slashed 3-percent.

Sales tax is the county’s other main money spinner — it accounts for 15 percent of revenue — and it’s down 3 percent over last year. Thus the cuts to schools, which claim a large share of the county’s budget — about 25 percent of the county’s entire budget goes to education.

While a 3-percent cut may sound small, it is indeed a hit, given that the school system asked the county for an increase on what they were given last year. Instead, they’re now losing $430,000.

Stamey said he realized the schools’ need and asked them to dip into their fund balance to cover their losses from state and local defunding.

“These are difficult decisions, ones that we don’t like to make, but we have to do it to keep a revenue neutral budget,” said Stamey.

For the schools to get that money back, commissioners would need to tack another two thirds of a penny onto the property tax rate.

Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31, with a vote scheduled for their regular meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 6.

Haywood County’s tax rate versus tax base

Tax base before revaluation: $7.258 billion

Tax base after revaluation: $7.086 billion

2010 tax rate: 51.4 cents

2011 tax rate: 54.13 cents

What is revenue neutral?

A revenue-neutral tax rate means the county will bring in the same amount of revenue despite changing property values. Usually, property values increase so the tax rate can come down. But property values on average went down slightly in the recent countywide revaluation. The tax rate will go up to compensate for the smaller tax base.

The official revenue-neutral tax rate allows for a minor increase from newly built homes and buildings that are added to the tax base year to year.

Under the newly verdant trees shading the lawn of the historic Haywood County Courthouse, 29 people silently lined the sidewalk last Friday, sending the message that they were “struck speechless” by slashed state funding proposed by House Republicans.

Their signs bore slogans decrying the deep cuts handed down to schools, universities, the elderly and environmental programs, among others.

Pacing in the sun on the courthouse steps behind them, Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Mars Hill, was anything but speechless. He’s the group’s spokesperson, and it’s probably fair to say that he’s livid about the cuts.

The phrase that he keeps returning to, and indeed the one that he has trotted out on the House floor throughout the budget debate to characterize the Republican’s approach to cuts, is “ready, shoot, aim.”

There’s no money, he said, he gets it. But there must be a line drawn somewhere, and he is concerned that the money-slashing sword is being drawn too quickly and wielded too loosely.

“We’re talking about fundamental services that are being cut to our people,” said Rapp. “These cuts are draconian, destructive and deeply disappointing.”

The ones he seems most viscerally worked up about are the ones that affect children and the elderly — the House plan calls for $1.2 billion to go from school funding and 50 percent of the money senior centers get would be taken away. Project Care, an in-home service for the elderly that got its start in Haywood County, would be eliminated completely. More at 4, a preschool program would take a big hit, as would its early development companion, Smart Start.

Rapp tends to refer to such educational reductions as “eating our seed corn,” and, he said, he thinks it’s going to have a negative impact on the future.

Rapp and his fellow Democrats have a plan to stave off some of the slash-and-burn that would sweep across the state if a similar budget emerges from fiscal wrangling in the Senate later this month. Rather than cutting the state’s sales tax by a penny, keep the sales tax at its current level. A one-cent sales tax billed as temporary to solve state budget shortfall two years ago was set to expire this year. Keeping it in place would at least defend schools from some of the more painful and deleterious blows.

“Nine-hundred million of that $1.2 billion could be erased by simply continuing that one-cent sales tax,” said Rapp.

The idea, though, isn’t likely to get much traction in a General Assembly that’s ruled by Republicans, many of whom ran on a no-tax-increase platform of fiscal conservatism, or at least promised a lightened tax load.

Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin, who bumped out incumbent Democrat John Snow last November, is one of Rapp’s Senate counterparts. He’s not going for the sales tax extension, and his Republican colleagues, he said, are unlikely to do so, either.

“It was a temporary tax for two years and it expires June 30, and if they thought that they needed a tax for longer than that, they should’ve voted for it,” said Davis.

If all goes to plan, he expects that he and his Senate colleagues may be proffering their own budget — similar, he said, to the House offering — within a few weeks.

Davis concedes that these cuts aren’t easy to swallow, but he maintains that, for now, they’re necessary.

“We’re not too excited about cutting good programs, but there’s only so much waste, fraud and abuse in the budget,” said Davis.

Davis said that he is hearing pleas from constituents, however.

“The magnitude of this problem is significant. I have lots and lots of people calling me, writing me letters, emailing me, telling me that they know we have some serious problems, but don’t cut my programs,” said Davis. “This is not easy.”

For Davis, the loss of legitimate programs is lamentable but necessary to right the state’s listing fiscal ship. He’s hopeful that things will soon get better, good programs can be restored and rainy day funds replenished. But today, even a great program may not be great enough to stay around.

“We cannot fix our state budget without touching those items, so some programs are really getting the ax,” said Davis. “But you know, nothing is a good deal if you can’t pay for it.”

Rapp, however, said the cuts have become unpalatable.

“I don’t think the average citizen anticipated the depth of cuts that they’re making,” Rapp said.

A conservation agreement with landowners has preserved 13 acres in the Bethel community of Haywood County.

The property is largely agricultural land, providing corn, hay and a critical calving unit for a larger cow-calf operation. The land will remain in agricultural production.

The land includes more than 1,000 feet of Garden Creek, which helps provide water for downstream farmers, the towns of Canton and Clyde, Evergreen Paper, trout, one species of rare fish, two species of rare freshwater mussels and hellbender salamanders.

The property was protected through a conservation easement, a voluntary and permanent agreement that limits certain development in exchange for possible federal, state, and local tax benefits, a cash payment, or some combination.  

In this case, the landowners, Charles and Janice Henson, received modest compensation for the conservation agreement. Partners funding the easement, as well as other out-of-pocket expenses such as a property survey, an appraisal of the easement’s value, legal fees, and other closing costs, include: the Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District, the N.C. Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, the Southwestern NC Resource Conservation and Development Council, the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, Bethel Rural Community Organization, and the Pigeon River Fund, which has provided several grants to help protect water quality in the Upper Pigeon River Valley by protecting rural lands.

This transaction marks the sixth conservation easement completed in the Upper Pigeon River watershed since 2007, a total of more than 230 acres.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.712.6474.

The state’s bloodletting has begun, and for Haywood County Schools, the losses might add up to more than $4 million siphoned off next year’s budget.

School officials have been steadily crunching numbers since the state House of Representatives offered a look into its proposed budget this month, and their calculations paint a fairly grim picture for some of the system’s programs.

Line-item cuts from the state that target specific budget items range from a 5 percent reduction in transportation funding to 100 percent pulled from things like dropout prevention, school technology and staff development.

Those cuts, trimming from 17 categories, total $2.4 million and mean a loss of 46 positions, many of them teacher assistants.

Then there’s the $1.6 million more in “discretionary reversion,” which means that the school system can work out on its own where that money has to be saved, but it’s got to somehow.

Altogether, the proposed House budget would cut 13 percent from the school system’s budget.

Meanwhile, courtesy of another state mandate that governs how much the school system pays into its employees’ retirement and health benefits, they’ll have to spend an extra $138,403 to cover those expenses. And since the percentages they pay into those funds are set by the state every year, they’re stuck with those increased costs.

There are other increases, too, that the school system has identified as needs, but they’re realistic about the likelihood of getting them. From a guidance counselor for Haywood Early College to two school nurse positions to rotate among the schools, Assistant Superintendent Bill Nolte is careful to say that they’re not just wants, but things the system might need to fund from somewhere.

“We may have to, or lose programs or even lose accreditation,” said Nolte.

In addition to the jump in operating expenses, school officials have found around $1.6 million in capital improvements that will need attention sometime soon. Some of those, like window tinting and new blinds, aren’t particularly urgent.

Some, like exit doors stuck shut by warped sidewalks, can’t wait.  

All this at a time when the county, too, is looking at its budget, trying to trim fat in anticipation of its own cuts from the state.

It would seem, then, that the schools are in a predicament. And that is the pitch education officials gave to county commissioners this week when they met to float their potential budget and test the waters on what kind of support they’d be getting from commissioners this year.

Though they didn’t pin down an exact percent increase on what they got last year, they’re looking to commissioners to at least stick to the funding formula they’ve been using for the last few years, and any extra on those capital projects and operating increases they could scrape up wouldn’t hurt, either.

They’re not looking for any help, though, in making up the difference cut by the state because, said Nolte, they’re well aware that more cash from the county just isn’t there.

“I don’t think we can, in good conscience, expect the commissioners to come up with revenue that they don’t have,” said Nolte. “It’s impractical, in my professional opinion, to say to our county commissioners, ‘Hey, the state cut all of this; fund it.’ There is a worldwide economic crisis, and to our knowledge, our commissioners do not have new revenues that would make up for any state cuts to any agencies.”

But with finances tight on every front, what they’re asking might still be too much.

“If we fund you at your requested level, that would be a 1.5 cent increase on the tax rate. That’s what you’re asking us to do,” said Commissioner Kevin Ensley, the board’s lone Republican. Ensley told school officials that, while he understood their problems, he was committed to a revenue-neutral budget, which would be a hard feat to accomplish while doling out extra money.

When asked what they would do if the county couldn’t fund them with any extra dollars, Superintendent Anne Garrett said they’d make do.

“Well, we would have to make it work because we wouldn’t have a choice,” said Garrett.

But even if the county does pony up for as much as the school needs, it will still mean some pretty painful slashing next year.

Last year, of the school system’s $72.5 million budget, the state picked up the tab for 62 percent of it. They’ve been reducing funding pretty steadily since recession came into full bloom in 2009; the system has lost $5.2 million since that year.

But this year, they will, at one time, be losing 77 percent of what they’ve lost in the past three years combined.

In terms of real jobs, the biggest hits are coming for teacher assistants. A whopping 49 percent of state funding for those positions is going right out the window, which translates to 32 assistants.

While the state suggests that every class through the third grade have a dedicated assistant, Haywood County can’t reach that threshold with the resources it has now. Apparently, no one can, according to school officials.

Right now, they’ve got assistants in all the kindergarten and first-grade classes, with a few rotating in second and third grades. If the House cuts go through, that would whittle that number significantly, essentially down to just the kindergarten aides.

Nolte said they would probably be able to stave off that particular carnage thanks to some forward planning last year. They got a slice of a federal money pie called EduJobs and then promptly squirreled it away for just such an occasion. They can now dip into it to fund some positions in the coming year.

Here’s the problem with that, though: it’s only enough to fill in that gap for one year. And depending on the state of the financial world this time next year, they could be back in the same place.

“Basically, what we’re doing is trying to do one more year and hope it comes back,” said Commissioner Michael Sorrells.

In other places, though, they don’t have the caches to shore up the gaping funding holes the state might leave.

Some school bus replacements will have to be put on hold and dropout prevention, staff development and several other programs will be scuttled altogether.

One pretty high number on the House cuts list is the 68 percent of textbook funding they’d pull. But, said Nolte, that’s not the big hit that it seems, as Haywood schools have been moving away from textbook reliance for a while now.

It makes sense — in a digital world, it’s unlikely that the classroom will be the only bastion of traditional paper texts. It helped their test scores, said Nolte, and now it’s helping their bottom line, too.

If the Senate’s budget is anything like the austerity of the House’s, school officials said that next year will be tough. But they’ve been preparing for this situation since 2009, having been forewarned by economists and government sources alike that the upcoming school year would be the nadir of the crisis for public finances. It’ll be rough, but they can probably ride it out.

There are a few stashes here and there that the school system could raid if things got dire, their yearly lottery payout being the fattest. But with 16 schools and even more offices, Nolte said they’re protecting that money to use for maintaining the buildings and grounds, since all the other pools that once paid for those improvements are drying up.

“We have 1.47 million square feet under roof, and it just takes some revenue to fix the pipes and the valves that start to leak and the roofs that wear out,” said Nolte.

Plus, he said, that final pot may soon be gone, too, diverted to other state needs. Two years ago, the school stopped getting ADM funding, which gave them money based on their schools’ pupil population.

“The lottery is being seriously eyed by the legislature,” said Nolte.

Really, though, what he’s concerned about is what comes next if things don’t get better. There comes a point where only so much that can be cut, and he worries that they’re on the express train to it.

“At some point in time, there’s going to be a straw or two that breaks the camel’s back. There’s really not a lot of cushion left there,” said Nolte. “We’ve lost over 50 positions in the last three years and we’ve tried to spread those, but at some point in time, there’ll be a saturation point.”

In the world of Haywood County tourism, a turf battle is brewing, and the fiefdoms under fire are the county’s visitor centers.

What might seem like the friendly face of local tourism has once again become a battleground where funding dollars are the ultimate prize, and the most recent conflict has flared over Canton’s visitor center. It’s a small building, situated just off Interstate 40 on Champion Drive, in what was once a car wash. It has been closed on and off for the past year as the county’s tourism agency struggled with funding shortfalls, and is now at risk of having the plug pulled completely.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority plans to shift funding for the Canton visitor center, which sees little traffic, to a new, flagship visitor center on Main Street in downtown Waynesville with the promise of reaching more people.

Canton Mayor Pat Smathers has spoken out against the funding cut, pointing out the Canton visitor center’s proximity to I-40, making it more visible than any of the other three visitor centers in the county.

“I think a big push ought to be made to make that the premier center in the county, not just because it’s Canton, but because that’s the main corridor in the county,” said Smathers. “More visitors come in contact with I-40 than with any other place in the county and that visitors center should be a place to stop people and be able to funnel them into Maggie Valley, into Waynesville, Cruso, Canton, Clyde — everywhere in the county.”

Smathers said he’d be disappointed if the Canton center was relegated in favor of TDA’s newer Waynesville visitor center.

“I don’t know why we’re going to put more visitor centers up in Waynesville and not fund the one here on the main corridor,” Smathers said.

The visitor center isn’t Canton’s only bone to pick with the TDA. At last week’s TDA meeting, it was highlighted that a new map put out by the tourism agency showcased Waynesville and Maggie Valley as the only towns in the county. Canton didn’t even make an appearance. Neither did Clyde.

TDA Executive Director Lynn Collins defended the map, saying that listed locations were given to those who bought ad space.

TDA makes amends with Haywood Chamber

Canton isn’t the only visitor center to lose funding to make way for TDA’s new endeavor. The tourism agency announced it would ax $30,000 in funding a year for a Waynesville visitor center operated by the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce — diverting the money to its own visitor center instead.

While the TDA’s new visitor center will be mere blocks from the one run by the chamber, the chamber plans to keep operating its visitor center anyway — resulting in two visitor centers three blocks apart.

Pleas from the chamber of commerce not to yank its funding so suddenly convinced the TDA board to partially reverse course. The TDA board decided last week to restore partial funding to the tune of $13,000 for the coming fiscal year, but not without some dissension among board members.

TDA board member Lyndon Lowe questioned the decision, especially in light of the Canton visitor center predicament.

“Canton’s visitor center we say that we don’t have money for but we’re going to subsidize the one here?” Lowe asked fellow board members before voting against the funding.

Marion Hamel agreed, saying she would feel more comfortable with a smaller amount.

“I feel that $13,000 is putting us over the edge,” said Hamel, who represents Maggie Valley on the TDA. “I understand the rationale behind it, I just wish that it wasn’t as much money as it is.”

Jennifer Duerr, TDA board member and owner of the Windover Inn, also expressed concerns over the fairness of partial funding to the chamber for its visitor center but not Canton’s.

“If we’re going to not be making an exception for one, I’m a little uncomfortable making it for another,” said Duerr.

The measure eventually passed, though not unanimously, with Hamel, Lowe and Duerr casting the only dissenting votes.

Canton fate up in the air

TDA planned to pull its staff out of the Canton visitor center in May and turn it over to volunteers to run, but not enough volunteers materialized. Total closure seemed imminent, but a rescue came through from a special pot of tourism money controlled by Canton.

A portion of tourism tax dollars are divvied up between five locales in the county to use on pet projects. Canton has elected to use $3,000 from its special pool of money to staff the visitor center through July. The TDA, however, is still calling for volunteers to help work the center at other times.

TDA board members maintain that they are committed to keeping the center open and believe in its viability.

“It is our every intention to keep that visitor center open,” said Ken Stahl, a TDA board member, but he has also noted that many driving visitors find information via GPS and Web-enabled phones, rather than through traditional highway visitor centers.

Strictly by the numbers, Canton’s center ranks third out of the county’s four visitor’s centers for actual visitors, trailing the popular Balsam center and Maggie Valley’s location.

However, Haywood County Economic Development Director Mark Clasby, who sits on the TDA, said that the Canton center should be a priority for tourism in the county.

“I think it plays an important role,” said Clasby. “Before the rock slide that we had, the numbers for the Canton visitor’s center were up. I think it’s a very important geographic location.”

Canton Town Manager Al Matthews is  both the town manager in Canton and a TDA board member himself.

“The town sees the necessity and advisability of having a visitor center here,” said Matthews. “We have been working with the TDA, trying to make sure that the visitor’s center is open on a regular basis.”

The car-wash-cum-visitor’s-center may not be the only iron in the fire for Canton, though. Back in 2004, the idea for a more comprehensive visitor’s experience off I-40 in Canton was proposed, but stalled before getting funding for a feasibility study when the economy tanked two years later.

There’s talk of the concept being resurrected, however, as part of an economic development plan being crafted for the town using a grant from the N.C. Rural Center.

Matthews said that, though it’s an idea that’s on the table, it’s far too early to speculate about its practicality.

“Hypothetically that is an option, but it’s premature to say that could or should or would happen,” said Matthews.

It’s still unclear whether Canton’s current center will be able to stay open full time into the next fiscal year. Lynn Collins, TDA’s executive director, said they “were still working it out.”

Folkmoot festival has lost a vital source of advertising money, jeopardizing its ability to lure visitors to Haywood County during the festival’s two-week summer run.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority announced its intention this month to yank its annual contribution to Folkmoot USA. The TDA has given Folkmoot between $6,000 and $12,000 every year since the festival’s inception in 1984.

Folkmoot President Chuck Dickson made a heartfelt pitch to the TDA board last week, asking them to reinstate the funding.

“Folkmoot has helped put Haywood County on the map and has definitely enhanced Haywood County’s reputation as a tourist destination,” Dickson told the 15 members of the TDA board.

TDA board members cited a still-slumping economy and overhead associated with a new downtown Waynesville visitor center as the culprits.

The festival turns Haywood County into an international bazaar every July, with more than 200 dancers and musicians from a dozen countries staging a series of performances and parades. The TDA funding is spent marketing the festival to audiences across the South.

Last year, Folkmoot only got a portion of what they requested — $6,000 of the $9,000 they were looking for — which covered just under a third of the $19,000 spent on advertising.

Cutting the contribution altogether would hurt Folkmoot’s ability to publicize the festival. Dickson said Folkmoot helps TDA achieve its own mission of luring overnight visitors.

“We put heads in beds — perhaps more than any other event in Haywood County,” said Dickson. “In 2010, 5,000 people attended ticketed events, 2,000 attended free events, and over 50,000 attended the parade and Festival Day, two events for which Folkmoot receives absolutely no money.”

Dickson came armed with both a crowd of Folkmoot supporters and an economic impact study done by Western Carolina University in 2008.

The study walks through the particulars of just how much money and business the festival pulls into the county, but the final total was over $4 million for the 2007 festival.

“These contributions not only increase the appeal of the festival from year to year, but help reinforce the attractiveness of the area in general and that of all other cultural events in the region,” summarized the study.

TDA cuts spurred by budget woes of its own

None of the TDA board members were arguing against that claim. In fact, several espoused the merits of having such a large and unique event housed in the county for such a long time.

However, they weren’t enamored enough to restore the funding.

The TDA board cited the same oft-repeated reason for budget cuts heard at the local, state and national levels of late: it’s the economy, what else can we do?

“It’s more about looking at harsh finances right now and looking at the bigger picture. I would rather give people more money, but we’re just in a situation with the budget and the money’s just not coming in,” said Jennifer Duerr, TDA board member and owner of the Windover Inn.

The TDA raises money with a 4 percent tax on overnight lodging, bringing in close to $1 million a year. As tourism has dropped with the recession, however, the TDA has seen its budget shrink by nearly $300,000 in three years.

This year alone, the TDA has come up $115,000 short of what it anticipated, leaving the agency struggling to make mid-year budget cuts.

TDA Board Member Ken Stahl floated the idea that Folkmoot lobby Buncombe and Jackson counties for contributions, but Dickson said that tactic was a bit of a long shot, given that they only put on a max of two shows in those counties.

The official suggestion was that Folkmoot apply to special pots of TDA money controlled by individual communities within the county. Maggie Valley, Waynesville, Lake Junaluska, Canton and Clyde each get a slice of TDA money to spend on pet projects, from concerts to brochures to micro-level marketing. A quarter of the total TDA budget is divvied up among the county’s five locales.

The TDA board told Folkmoot to take its request to the five committees that oversee the five pots of money.

Folkmoot has historically been paid out of the general fund since the festival is county-wide and holds events in literally each of the five locales, Dixon said. So which one would Folkmoot apply to? The board told Dixon to apply to all five.

The problem there is that those committees won’t have any cash to hand out until autumn at the earliest. In fact, grants for this round of funding were approved later at the same meeting.

Not everybody on the TDA board was in favor of cutting Folkmoot from the tourism agency’s general budget.

Mark Clasby, the county’s economic development director who also sits on the TDA, was vocally opposed to revoking the money.

“The recognition Folkmoot has brought to Haywood County is tremendous, and I disagree with the recommendation that you’re making,” Clasby told board members. “I think it’s wrong.”

Clasby said that Folkmoot is so well-known it’s one of the tools he uses to pitch Haywood County when he’s out courting business development for the county, and that if any organization deserves the money, it’s Folkmoot.

“I certainly understand the budget situation we’re all facing, but at least give them some funding and support,” said Clasby.

TDA Board Member Jennifer Duerr countered Clasby’s view, arguing that it’s just about a change in the way funds are given out, thanks to the economy. The dwindling general fund should be kept for county-wide causes, she said.

“It’s not that we want to not give the money, it’s just not there. Do we give the money to one event, or keep it to represent the entire county?” asked Duerr.

Other members voiced similar views, with Alice Aumen, the board’s chairperson, saying that this year’s budget has been particularly trying.

“It has been one of the most difficult years since I’ve been on the board,” said Aumen.

James Carver, owner of the Maggie Valley Restaurant and board member, said he’d love to give Folkmoot money this year, but that it just wasn’t there.

“I‘ve always been a big supporter of Folkmoot, but money’s down,” said Carver.

In the end, the TDA board gave Dickson and his compatriots their apologies and an invitation to come back and ask again next year, but if they were hoping for a check, they went away empty handed.

“What we would like to leave Folkmoot with is that it is an important event. We all hope it’s going to be a great year for travel and tourism and revenues are going to come up,” said TDA Board Member Sue Knapko, encouraging festival officials to come back again if the committees don’t work out.

Haywood County, like everyone else, is bracing for the impact of state budget cuts. But the good news is that they may leave the budget fray with fewer scrapes than they thought.

In Raleigh, budget committees have been busily trying to bang out cuts in the billions, and while nothing is yet final, a proposed House budget released last week gave a view of the carnage that may be to come.

So Haywood commissioners met with county staff to hash out what this might mean for the county’s budget and the services that rely on it.

Though there will certainly be state cuts that will fall to counties to pay for, but County Manger Marty Stamey told commissioners at a budget workshop last week he’s not as concerned as he could be.

“Best case scenario, we’ll be $250,000 out, which is good,” said Stamey, meaning that a mere $250,000 shortfall would be their best landing in the budget fallout. “A lot of counties would be proud to be where we are. People say what they want to say, but budget-wise, we’ve done the right things over the last few years.”

The county’s budget is still in flux, waiting on both state cuts and the reaction of other groups, such as community colleges and the school system, which may come to the county for helping plug holes from state cuts of their own.

Currently, community colleges are looking at a 10 percent reduction in state funding, while K-12 education was slightly shielded, only facing an 8.8 percent cut.

One area where the county might feel some crunch is in its health and human services budget. The state is seeking to reduce spending there by $527 million, including $527 million in Medicaid, $67 million for mental health services and half of the funding for senior centers. Also on the chopping block are Community Care block grants and Smart Start spending.

“Human services are really busting at the seams for demand in this county,” said Stamey, noting that a decline in services would affect many citizens harshly.

Another proposal that staff said seemed likely to come through is the closure of four state prisons. Though there’s no word yet on which prisons would close, it would shift the burden of housing prisoners serving time for misdemeanors to county jails.

Stamey reported that, while Sheriff Bobby Suttles said he was confident he could house the criminals currently in the system, predicting whether they’ll have room in the future is impossible.

“That’s one reason that we think we might need to have higher contingency this year, for things like this, because that’s an unknown,” said Stamey.

On the revenue side, Finance Director Julie Davis told commissioners that the picture is no clearer there.

Surprisingly, said Davis, the property revaluation that happened this year isn’t what’s throwing projections into turmoil.

Usually, property values would go up with a revaluation, requiring counties to tinker with the tax rate to offset would would otherwise be an unpallatable rise in property taxes.

But due to the stagnant real estate market, the total value of property remained nearly flat in the recent revaluation — requiring little adjustment to the property tax rate to bring in the same amount of revenue as last year.

Sales tax is a different story, however.

“Sales taxes have been up and down. Looking at the comparison to last year, four months they’re up compared to the current year and three months they’re down,” Davis said. “Were chasing a moving target on revenues.”

The fluctuation makes it hard to predict how much money the county can bank on from sales tax next year, but year-to-date on average, sales tax collections are down 10 percent over last year.

In light of that, and state-level slashing, a property tax rate increase might not be out of the question.

Overall, though state cuts do look grim, Stamey said he’s confident in the county’s ability to stay afloat without undue carnage. But, he said, there just aren’t any solid numbers yet to be had, so it’s impossible to know for certain.

“We’re at the mercy of a lot of people’s budget’s right now to sort of figure out our budgets,” said Stamey. “I feel like I’d be doing us an injustice right now [to give numbers].”

The picture painted by county staff was in broad strokes, an overview of what could be coming in stead of the nuts and bolts of what to do about it. But that was purposeful, according to Davis.

“We specifically did not mention numbers or the revenue neutral rate because there is so much up in the air right now,” said Davis.

Commissioners will be meeting throughout the spring for more budget talks, though they noted that much of it is out of their hands.

As Commissioner Kevin Ensley said, “so if the state leave’s us alone, we’ll be alright.”

A state budget is expected by early June.

Haywood schools talk budget

Haywood County Schools could be facing a budget shortfall of $4 million if the state House of Representatives proposed budget gets adopted. The school board held a public hearing on Tuesday to hear community feedback and discuss what cuts might mean for local schools.

The reductions would mean 46 positions would be slashed within the system. Teacher assistants would be scaled back by 49 percent, textbooks by 68 percent and dropout prevention programs, school technology and staff development initiatives, among other things, would be eliminated.

See www.smokymountainnews.com Thursday for an update on the public hearing and the impact of threats to school funding.

An angry crowd accused Haywood County commissioners this week of unfairly slapping some property owners with higher values while letting others off the hook in the recent countywide appraisal.

About 50 people turned out at the commissioners meeting Monday to complain that appraisers had botched up when assessing their properties. At best, they blamed commissioners for being complicit in an erroneous property revaluation — and at worst for being part of a conspiracy to target certain property owners with deliberately inflated values.

Commissioner Mark Swanger explained that commissioners don’t have a role in revaluation. Revaluation is conducted by appraisers, who examine the prevailing real estate market to arrive at new property values.

Since property values determine how much you pay in property taxes, the biggest fear from the audience was that their taxes would go up as a result of higher property values.

“There are people who don’t have extra money in their pocket to keep on donating to taxes,” said Horace Edwards of Cruso, who helped organize the turnout.

Generally real estate increases in value a little every year. But given the depressed market, many homes have stagnated in value and others have even gone down.

Yet half the property owners in the county saw an increase in value since the last countywide appraisal five years ago. And that’s what Jonnie Cure said she doesn’t understand. How could anyone’s have gone up?

“What has happened in Haywood County? I simply don’t get it. It is truly incredible,” Cure said.

Yvonne Mazet, who lives in a single-wide trailer, said she can hardly afford her taxes now, let alone now that her property values have gone up.

“I don’t feel my taxes should have gone up,” Mazet said. “I don’t think in this economic era we are using our heads very well. I think this is a very bad choice to re-evaluate our property.”

Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick said the purpose of a revaluation is not to force higher taxes on anyone.

“Our goal in this process is not to raise people’s taxes. It is to make sure the values are fair when we apply the tax rate,” Kirkpatrick said.

Edwards said it isn’t fair that more expensive homes have dropped in value, while lower or median priced ones increased. Edwards implored commissioners to use the weight of their office to “take some action and fix it.”

But the county is required to base values on comparable sales of similar property.

If expensive homes aren’t selling for as much as they used to, the county appraisers had no choice but to decrease the value of those homes to reflect selling prices the real world.

“We cannot choose to violate the law. That is not an option for us,” Swanger said.

Denny King questioned whether the appraisers accurately pegged market values, however.

“The real test for appraisals is if you put the property up for sale would they sell within a reasonable amount of time for the appraised value?” asked King, who ran for county commissioner as a Tea Party supporter last fall but lost.

Justin Hensley said he never saw an appraiser.

“No one came to our house. I don’t know how they came up with these numbers. You can’t fly over in an airplane and come up with this stuff. It is really unfair and it is totally unaccurate,” Hensley said.

Appraisers indeed visited each parcel, but they do not come inside and usually don’t get out of the car.

In Haywood County, it has been five years since the last revaluation. Counties are required to do one at least every eight. Some speakers questioned why the county didn’t wait another three years.

Jack Wadham said large numbers of people might refuse to pay their property taxes and sue the county over the revaluation. As long as the lawsuit was pending, they wouldn’t have to pay, he said, and the county would go broke waiting to collect taxes.

“That is not a threat. That is just telling you what could really happen,” Wadham said.

The crowd applauded after most of the speakers, occasionally offering up a standing ovation, but did not get unruly.

When public comment concluded, commissioners started to respond to the crowd’s concerns, but the audience got up and walked out, at first one by one, then en masse, in an obvious flout to the commissioners’ attempts to explain the revaluation.

Several in the audience told commissioners the revaluation would cost them their seats in the next election.

“It was kind of convenient that you did not do this on an election year,” said Cure. “I am sure you are hoping we forget you did it by 2012.”

Swanger repeatedly urged those who complained about their property values to appeal. The first step is to make an appointment with the county’s property appraisal office. The appraisers will share how they arrived at the property value, generally by citing the price fetched by similar property that was sold. The property owner can then explain why they believe the value is wrong.

David Francis, head of the county tax department, said the appeal process works. He shared an example from one property owner who has utility lines on their property that would hurt its selling price. The county appraiser agreed and adjusted the value accordingly.

“I know there is a lot of frustration out there. Give us a chance to sit down and explain it to you,” Francis said.

What is property revaluation?

In North Carolina, counties are required to conduct a mass appraisal of real estate at least every eight years. Property taxes are based on property values.

The reval is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of a particular property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying a fair share come tax day.

In Haywood County, the total value of all property remained flat. If you add it all up — the value of every home, lot and tract of land — it amounts to $6.791 billion, an increase of less than one percent over last year’s total value of $6.787 billion. Roughly half the property owners saw their values go up, while half saw their values go down.

When property goes up across the board in a revaluation, the county typically lowers the tax rate to offset what would otherwise be an increase in property taxes. This time, since there was no net gain in the property tax base, the tax rate will likely remain about the same, and whether your individual taxes go up or down will likely depend on how your property values performed.

While the construction industry, the Haywood Home Builders’ Association is giving itself a makeover, one it hopes can keep them afloat and the doors open.

With home building still flagging, membership has been steadily declining, and instead of waiting on the ship to right itself, they’re beginning to realize that if the economic paradigm has shifted, maybe it’s time to shift with it.

“We have no choice,” Home Builder’s President Jim Howell said frankly. “We’re going to have to change and think outside the box.”

For the home builders, it’s a particularly salient lesson. In a bust that centered around real estate, the folks who build that real estate are going to take a pretty hefty hit.

If you’re looking at unemployment numbers, said Howell, go ahead and double them, and that’s what kind of unemployment you’ll find in the construction sector.

So, unsurprisingly, their membership has dropped — from just more than 200 at the height of the building boom to only 130 members now. The Haywood County Board of Realtors has likewise seen a drop in membership — from 430 Realtors in the county in 2006 to only 261 today.

Given the decline, the Haywood County Homebuilder’s Association isn’t certain it can keep its doors open.

“That’s something that could happen,” said Howell, when asked about the prospect of shuttering the association. “With the current loss of members, it’s very realistic. It could happen in the next year very easily.”

Howell is trying to change the body’s course while he’s at the helm.

They’re focusing efforts not only on how to maintain viability with a smaller membership, but also how to retain those members and give them the services they need in a changing market.

“We’re trying to change the format of our meetings, turn them into social events,” said Howell. “When you are in a business-style format, it’s pretty restricted.”

They’re also looking to other fundraising options, like an iPad raffle they’re holding and a shootout fundraiser planned for the summer.

They’re trying to get more involved in the community, as well, joining with groups like the Board of Realtors and the Chamber of Commerce to bring in more support, better networking connections and hopefully share the burden of a diminishing economy.

And they’re not the only ones who are looking towards changing their tactics.

The Haywood County Board of Realtors has been discussing a merger since last year with the Board of Realtors in Asheville, Henderson and Transylvania. The merger would help lessen the blow of a deflated real estate market by creating one large umbrella board that would help spread costs and consolidate benefits.

When the proposal was first floated to Realtors earlier this year, Lisa Brown, the board’s executive, said they were open to what was best for members, and with such a slip in membership, it’s hard not to see banding together as an enticing option.

“We saw strength in numbers, we could give more services to our members,” said Brown. “So let’s sit at the grown up table, let’s hear the proposal let’s see what’s in it for the association.”

The downside may be less of a local focus in Haywood, however.

Readjusting to a new kind of real estate economy isn’t going to be easy for organizations like Brown’s and Howell’s. But Howell believes that now, more than ever, they can offer their members connections and support that they’ll desperately need going forward.

Recognizing the new and different needs of the county’s homebuilders in today’s climate will be the key to any future success.

“I don’t think the building boom will be as big as it was,” said Howell. “I think we outgrew what we could afford to do, not only as an industry but as a nation. We were too busy living the American dream to sit down and figure out what we could afford.”

In a report released this week, the National Association of Home Builders noted a slip in builder confidence for the month of April. Every month, they do an assessment of home builders across the country, polling them both on the work they have and their confidence in future prospects.

While some parts of the country showed upticks in both jobs and confidence, the South went down.

However, in Haywood County, the construction industry is showing signs of a rebound, albeit a slight one. At the very least, things are leveling off, based on the number of building permits being issued.

And that would be good new for the entire county.

“Anything that happens in the building industry affects every business in this area,” said Howell. “If we’re not working, a lot of people are not buying hamburgers.”

By the numbers: Haywood construction permits

The construction industry has been on the decline witnessed by the decrease in all building permits issued in Haywood County. These numbers includes all permits for residential, commercial, new construction and additions.

2006    753

2007    772

2008    499

2009    388

2010    416

* These numbers do not include Waynesville and Canton, which issue their own permits. Building permits for Maggie Valley are included for 2010, but not previous years. Maggie quit administering its own building permits due to a decline in volume with the recession.