Wilmington’s city manager will try to find another $300,000 of room in the draft budget he’d prepared for preliminary approval tonight.
As presented to the public last month, the $145 million plan–with the general fund worth $91 million–includes a 1 cent property tax increase to support priorities like an increase in employee pay.
City council members at a work session Monday morning asked budget writers to locate additional funds for, among other things, affordable housing initiatives and economic development as well as supplemental aid to a Wilmington Downtown Inc. (WDI) project the city requested.
Council is scheduled to cast its first vote on the budget draft tonight, with a final vote set for June 17. City Manager Sterling Cheatham said the draft up for vote will include the new requests discussed Monday.
WDI, for one, asked for money at a public hearing council held on the budget last month, saying it needed the aid to adequately conduct a study the city commissioned earlier this year. It would determine the value of implementing a municipal service district downtown, with possible added taxation over individual areas to fund their specific needs. (Related story)
Clark Hipp, chairman of the WDI board, said the agency’s president, Ed Wolverton, could do a much more careful job if WDI had funding to move a part time worker into full time, giving Wolverton more space to complete his task. The $30,000 requested would also cover some out-of-pocket expenses the agency would incur in the process. (WDI was already marked for $65,000 in the draft budget.)
Council said it would set that money aside and ask WDI to present on how those funds would be expended.
The same went for the separate Bring It! Downtown campaign, which also requested $30,000 at last month’s budget hearing. The campaign encourages downtown commerce and promotes the free hour of parking the city’s decks offer.
Funding the city has offered it in the past has come from the city parking fund, which feeds itself through fees.
“I think they’ve been successful,” Mayor Pro Tem Margaret Haynes said Monday of Bring It! Downtown. “I’d like to see us try it again.”
Haynes also suggested, after lengthy discussion raised by Councilman Earl Sheridan, putting $100,000 into a revolving fund for housing initiatives.
And Councilman Charlie Rivenbark found some consensus with a roughly $45,000 request (which may increase and recur) for regular maintenance of medians and other rights of way in the city–a task that Councilwoman Laura Padgett said was vital for economic development as it relates to impressions of the city and quality of life. The city’s existing staffing level hasn’t been enough to keep up with such growing maintenance needs.
But after the morning’s various requests stacked up to nearly $300,000, a financial hole was open–though more so due to the legislature’s repeal last week of a business tax the city won’t be able to rely on going forward. That landed after Cheatham’s draft budget went out for public input in May.
“We are talking about an unbalanced budget going into … June,” said Cheatham, whose spending plan must have city council’s approval by the end of the month.
The new fiscal year begins July 1.
The city might have to tap savings–possibly $1.7 million–to address the state’s newly signed repeal of the privilege license tax on businesses, which has in the past given the city revenue equivalent to a penny or two on the property tax rate.
Legislators have, however, signaled that they’ll help municipalities find replacement funding sources.
Story: Business tax repeal could affect property tax bills
The requests could find more discussion at the city council’s regular meeting tonight at 6:30, in the second-floor chambers of Wilmington City Hall at 102 N. Third St.
Click here for the full agenda.
Story: Budget writers present plan with increased tax rate, fees
Ben Brown is a news reporter at Port City Daily. Reach him at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
