Alamance County’s commissioners held an hour and a half public hearing Monday night, with area residents weighing in for and against the county manager’s proposed 2026-2027 budget with its 2.25-cent (4.6 percent) property tax rate increase.
The current 49.4-cent rate would be raised to 51.65 cents per $100 valuation based on county manager Heidi York’s proposed budget. While York trimmed the overall budget by about 1.2 percent from last year’s levels, she included another property tax rate increase – for the third year in a row.
The three dozen speakers who spoke during the hearing were fairly evenly divided between those supporting the increase – most of whom were political candidates, ABSS teachers and other employees, ABSS parents and two school board members, and even a high school student – and others representing or speaking on behalf of senior citizens and those on fixed incomes who objected to the proposed tax rate increase and, in several cases, citing what they considered the unreasonably high valuations put on their homes and properties during the last revaluation in 2023.
This year’s hearing in the main courtroom of the Historic Court House was about half the length of last year’s three-hour hearing. At least part of that disparity was the shortened time frame for individual public comments: two minutes allowed versus the traditional three minutes, as well as a dozen or so fewer speakers.
Commissioners did not vote or comment on the budget at the end of the hearing, but are expected to do so within the next two weeks. State law requires that the budget be adopted by the end of June.
Check back for more comprehensive coverage of the comments of residents during the public hearing.
