Burlington’s city council has given its unanimous nod to a new municipal budget that calls for $90.5 million in outlays from the city’s general fund, a 2 percent merit-based raise for city staff members, fee increases for water, sewer, and sanitation – and no increase in the city’s property tax rate.
The council voted 5-to-0 on Tuesday to adopt this new spending plan, which maintains Burlington’s property tax rate at 48.36 cents for every $100 of property value. According to Peggy Reece, the city’s finance director, this budget is a no-frills proposition for the city as it enters the financial cycle that formally begins on July 1.
“This budget is back to basics,” she said during a city council meeting on Tuesday, “and covering what expenses we have to cover like new debt service.”
The new budget calls for a grant total for $90.5 million in outlays from the city’s general fund – a repository for various taxes and fees that bankrolls most municipal programs and services. Reece observed that about 70 percent of these expenditures go to the city’s payroll, including a proposed merit-based pay raise that averages out to an extra 2 percent over Burlington’s fulltime workforce.
Reece also alluded to an outlay of $1.6 million that will cover the initial debt payment on the first $16.5 million of $68.5 million in bonds that the city’s voters approved in November. City officials have previously estimated that the annual debt service on all of these bonds will cost the equivalent of 5.7 cents on the tax rate.
Reece stressed that the city’s new budget recommends no change in the city’s current property tax rate. She added, however, that it calls for a 5 percent increase in water and sewer fees, which go into an account separate from the general fund to pay for the city’s public utilities.
The city’s finance director also noted that the new fiscal year will see a $10 increase in the monthly fees that Burlington’s residents pay for garbage and recycling collection. She attributed the increase to higher disposal fees at Alamance County’s landfill and price hikes by the city’s recycling contractor. Members of the council pointed out that these sanitation increases will allow the city to spin out these services from the general fund and establish a self-sustaining account similar to the water and sewer fund.
The budget’s passage followed a brief public hearing that drew nary a peep from the general public – as well as some pithy, but uniformly positive, comments from the council itself.
“Our budget is approved,” mayor Jim Butler said as he summed up his own thoughts on the 5-to-0 decision, “and there will be no tax increase.”
