Members of the general public weren’t the only ones who weighed in on the county manager’s proposed budget when Alamance County’s board of commissioners gathered at the historic courthouse on Monday.
In addition to that evening’s three-hour public hearing, this four-hour marathon also featured a long-form critique from commissioner Ed Priola on certain aspects of the recommended spending plan that county manager Heidi York had unveiled in May.
A first-term Republican who was elevated to the county’s governing board in November, Priola had obtained a slot on Monday’s meeting agenda in order to present facts and figures that he found wanting in York’s presentation. In particular, he wanted to highlight the growth rate in Alamance County’s expenditures to prime the pump for his own, rival spending plan that strives to eliminate a 1.59-cent property tax increase in the manager’s proposal.
Priola made no secret of his misgivings about York’s approach to the budget when he delivered his response in the form of a PowerPoint presentation at the end of Monday’s proceedings.
“I have some disappointment with the manager’s proposal. The transparency, in my thinking, is lacking. . . The long-term trends are not presented for our observation, and I think that is a problem for our decision making.”
– County commissioner Ed Priola
“I have some disappointment with the manager’s proposal,” he told his fellow commissioners as well as what remained of that evening’s audience. “The transparency, in my thinking, is lacking…The long-term trends are not presented for our observation, and I think that is a problem for our decision making.”
Priola went on to say that county spending went up 74 percent over the past 10 years, inflation rose 35 percent during that time, while the population grew 19 percent. He also observed that, between 2015 and 2023, personal income rose 42 percent, as compared to the 62 percent that county spending went up during that same period.
The commissioner added that the growth in property tax revenue has outpaced the increase in sales tax collections. He argued that these factors, when taken together, should make the county’s elected leaders think twice before increasing the property tax rate.
“The problem isn’t that people are taxed too little in my view. The problem is that government spending has grown too much.”
– County commissioner Ed Priola
“The problem isn’t that people are taxed too little in my view,” he declared, echoing a famous quote from Ronald Reagan. “The problem is that government spending has grown too much.”
[Story continues below chart; see two other related charts in this week’s editorial, The problem with county budget is too much spending, not too little taxing.]
Priola went on to challenge some of the other assumptions that he said pervade the county manager’s budget.
Among her proposals to the commissioners, York had recommended a 2 percent “cost of living adjustment” for all fulltime county employees, a merit-based raise that would average out to another 2.5 percent across the county’s workforce, and $446,000 to implement the recommendations from the final phase of a three-part pay study.
Priola, for his part, insisted that this three-tiered layer cake of additional compensation is entirely excessive. He observed that the average county employee makes $59,472 a year, as opposed to the $51,573 that their average private sector counterpart takes home per annum. He concluded that the staff could make do with more modest raises than the manager proposed.
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Throughout his presentation, Priola couched York’s recommended merit-based raise as 3 rather than 2.5 percent – a practice that only became clear at the end of the slideshow. A footnote in his penultimate slide explains that the merit-based raise has traditionally been worth 3 percent to staff with exemplary performance, although it averages out to 2.5 percent across the board. Priola’s alternate spending plan proposes to limit the raise to these top performers, reducing the overall bump in pay from 2.5 to 1.5 percent, while trimming $500,000 from the county’s expenses.
Priola went on to enunciate his own verdict on the performance of Alamance County’s top-ranking administrators as he proceeded with his presentation on Monday.
“Is the county government being well managed?” he asked the audience rhetorically. “Are we getting the bang for the buck? Not to my thinking. . . We’re paying $1 million for our senior administration. . . We have problems with corruption and criminal investigations. We have weak oversight, and our performance management goals are TBD [to be determined].”
– County commissioner ed priola
“Is the county government being well managed?” he asked the audience rhetorically. “Are we getting the bang for the buck? Not to my thinking…We’re paying $1 million for our senior administration…We have problems with corruption and criminal investigations. We have weak oversight, and our performance management goals are TBD [to be determined].”
In the final analysis, Priola said that he thinks these conclusions point to a way out of a property tax increase in the county’s next budget. He told Monday’s audience that he would lay out this tax neutral proposal when the commissioners reconvene next week for a pair of work sessions on the county’s next budget. The details of this alternate spending plan were nevertheless spelled out in the commissioner’s penultimate PowerPoint slide.
As mentioned above, Priola has proposed knocking a percentage point off of York’s 2.5 percent merit-based raise in order to cut the county’s expenditures by $500,000.
The commissioner is also recommending the elimination of 13 staff-level positions to save another $1.1 million. His targets for removal include 2 administrative positions, 6 posts in the county’s library system, and 5 in the county’s tax office.
Priola deemed these 5 tax office employees redundant since the commissioners have previously agreed to farm out the next countywide revaluation at a cost of roughly $2.6 million. The former tax administrator who had proposed the outsourced reval had nevertheless advised against any cuts in the tax office’s in-house appraisers, who he said will continue to evaluate new construction as it comes on the tax rolls.
Another suggestion in the commissioner’s alternate spending plan is to use last year’s actual elections expenses to estimate next year’s proposed outlay to the elections office, saving another $175,000 in the process.
Priola also proposes to deep six the county’s $25,000 allocation to Burlington’s Link Transit bus service, which covers part of the cost for a route that serves Alamance County’s headquarters. Priola argues that the commissioners can dispense with this outlay with a clear conscience because the city of Burlington “has committed millions of dollars to build pickleball courts.”
The commissioner’s final recommendation is to shave $2.4 million from a $3.9 million allocation from the county’s general fund to a separate fund for capital improvements.
All told, these potential adjustments would lower the general fund’s outlays by $4.2 million, which Priola insists would preempt the county manager’s 1.59 cent tax hike. York, meanwhile, has put the cuts needed to forestall this rate increase at $4.4 million – leaving $200,000 or so that remains unaccounted for in the commissioner’s rival proposal.
In any event, Priola told his fellow commissioners that he’d go through his plan in more detail during next week’s work sessions, which are scheduled to take place at 9:30 a.m. on Monday and Tuesday. He went on to assure his colleagues that it’s ultimately up to them to maintain the county’s property tax rate at its current level of 46.9 cents for every $100 of property value.
“We can keep it unchanged,” he declared. “It simply requires the will to lead.”
