The most fundamental question when putting together a government budget is this: who are you trying to serve? Those who pay the bills (in the case of the county budget, the county’s taxpayers) or those who are on the government payroll (bureaucrats and special county programs)?
For the third fiscal year in a row, county manager Heidi York has revealed that she’s always on the side of government employees, no matter the ultimate expense to the county’s property owners who must pay the property tax increases she always recommends.
This year’s proposed tab: a 1.59-cent tax rate increase, which amounts to almost an extra 3.4 percent. That’s on top of last year’s 3.66-cent (8.47 percent) increase and the preceding year’s .61-cent hike (about 1.4 percent) above what could have been an ostensibly “revenue neutral” rate of 42.59 cents after the county’s revaluation.
The cumulative amount of this year’s proposed tax rate, if adopted by the commissioners, would put the property tax rate at 13.8 percent higher than the revenue neutral level (42.59 cents per $100) that was promised in 2023, just two years ago.
York kept her record intact, three straight years of three straight property tax increase recommendations. Will the commissioners continue to give in to her machinations?
In our view, that should be three strikes and she’s out.
Commissioners have trimmed, but not eliminated, her proposed increases in the past.
But some of the commissioners, most notably chairman John Paisley, Jr., seem almost infatuated by York, despite her repeated deafness toward their stated tax and spending preferences or priorities.
Paisley has voted against her first two budgets, and we certainly hope he’ll vote against this one. But she needs a dressing down – whether in public or behind closed doors during a personnel evaluation in closed session.
In most private companies, when the chief operating officer doesn’t do what the board of directors asks for, he or she would be fired. Frankly, we’ve felt York has been either in over her head since shortly after her arrival almost four years ago or she deliberately tries to override the elected board.
She’s sat, presumably attentively, as the commissioners have repeatedly emphasized their desire to keep the tax rate flat this year – and she heard the same message in 2023.
But, not to be outdone, for the third year in a row she has ignored the directions of her board, recommending instead another property tax increase.
Despite all the hand-wringing and bluster about how hard she worked to come up with a budget that she claimed “strikes a balance between competing priorities,” it is nothing of the kind.
It is full of increased spending, most notably raises for employees (2 percent for so-called “cost-of-living” pay raises and another 2.5 percent for so-called “merit” increases).
Those personnel increases make up more than half the amount of the increased rate of taxation. And personnel costs constitute 41 percent of the budget, York told commissioners Monday night.
And, by the way, she left plenty of the taxpayers’ money in the bank as she reached, almost by default, for a tax rate increase. The so-called fund balance, which is really the repository for previous over-taxation that goes into a savings account, of sorts, for future spending has unencumbered funds equal to almost one-fifth of their entire budget. How about spending some of it now, rather than adding on yet another layer of spending and taxing.
Washington Monument budgeting
York is a master of a Washington, D.C. practice, long called “Washington Monument budgeting.”
When casting about for “cuts” in spending (or more accurately, cuts in the rate of growth of spending), federal officials always go after services that most taxpayers would consider more “essential” than many of the ones they leave intact.
In Washington, the adage during budget seasons, says that the first threat is always to cut the spending for lighting the Washington Monument, and/or keeping it open for tourists. It’s a very high-profile expenditure, and the screams from constituents and members of Congress when such threatened “cuts” are floated are predictable, indeed.
While claiming to have “held the line” on personnel, York actually adds three more people to the county’s payroll. Then in a largely meaningless item, she proposes a freeze on hiring for positions that are already vacant; but then, significantly, she froze them even in places where previous months of discussion have indicated a desperate need to fill them, such as detention officers at the county jail.
The jail actually makes money for the county – through the sheriff’s contracts for renting out jail beds to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Marshals Service. But much of that money is diverted from the sheriff’s budget to extraneous items in other departments.
Then, in a rather flippant, half-hearted effort to appease commissioners who had asked for a tax-neutral option, York proposes to close three of the four county libraries (leaving only May Memorial to be supported by county tax dollars). A Washington Monument move, if there ever was one.
No tightening up at county agencies, no cutting out millions in payments to “outside agencies,” some of which are non-profits that don’t, in our judgment, deserve any taxpayer funding, and especially not in years (which is most) that funding is, or should be, tight.
School system bureaucrats are also very proficient in deploying Washington Monument budget threats.
So, they are claiming that York didn’t provide them enough money in their part of the county budget to maintain many of their frivolous programs (our description, not theirs). Within less than a day of York’s budget presentation, school officials sent out warning letters to local municipalities that the school system might have to cut out paying them for school resource officers at schools within cities and towns across the county (i.e., Burlington, Graham, Mebane, Elon, and Haw River).
This is clearly designed to stir up opposition among the school system’s advocates and summon calls for allocating more money for the school system – and raising property taxes even higher, if necessary.
County commissioner Steve Carter seemed to be genuine in soliciting citizen input on whether the commissioners should adopt a tighter budget without a property tax hike, or whether to endorse the manager’s preferred option with a 1.59-cent increase.
A public hearing is scheduled for June 2, but we recognize not everyone is available that night, or interested to trundle out with potentially dozens of other residents, of varying political persuasions, to express their views.
Printed nearby are the five commissioners’ addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses so that citizens who want to avail themselves of the opportunity to comment directly to their elected officials can do so – whether or not they choose to appear at the June 2 public hearing.
We can assure the public of this much: if opponents of higher taxes don’t speak up now, they almost surely will be faced with higher property taxes (again) after July 1.
How to reach county commissioners:
John Paisley, Jr., chairman
Mail: 1104 East Willowbrook Drive
Burlington, NC 27215
Email: john.paisley@alamance-nc.com
Phone: (336) 212-7022
Steven J. Carter, vice chairman
Mail: 3312 Doral Court
Burlington, NC 27215
Email: steve.carter@alamance-nc.com
Phone: (336) 214-7606
Pamela T. Thompson
Mail: 2222 Delaney Drive
Burlington, NC 27215
Email: pamela.thompson@alamance-nc.com
Phone: (336)-675-3479
Ed Priola
Mail: 747 South Eighth Street
Mebane, NC 27302
Email: ed.priola@alamancecountync.gov
Phone: (336) 260-5242
Kelly Allen
Mail: 731 Keck Road
Haw River, NC 27258
Email: kelly.allen@alamancecountync.gov
Phone: (336) 260-5664
All information from Alamance County government and official public records
