Cosmic Harry Launches Galactic Budget Rocket
There’s a little known law of Cardassian physics that states if a government bureaucrat travels fast enough along the space-time continuum, he can turn a tax decrease into a tax increase.
Mecklenburg County Manager Harry Jones hit warp speed with his $1.4 billion recommended budget, which simultaneously trims the tax rate by about a penny (to 82.49 cents) while through the magic of revaluation delivers higher tax bills to 185,127 households, or 57 percent of the homes in the county. The average hit: nearly $400 a year in additional property taxes, skyrocketing upwards of $688 for some folks living in parts of south Mecklenburg, where about 88 percent of households will be walloped by higher tax bills.
Budget Director Hyong Yi, however, cautioned that those average increases were “a function of every household we’re doing math on” and that there were “outliers,” or homes with value increases “so off the scales that they’re effecting the average calculations.” One example, Yi said, was an empty lot previously worth about $130,000; somebody built a house on it and the value spiked to $1.8 million.
But even accounting for the outliers, and running the numbers using median instead of average values, the projected household property tax hit is an extra $200 a year. A breakdown of how the manager’s recommended tax rate impacts different districts and households, compared to a revenue-neutral rate, can be found here and here.
As is often his wont, Jones waxed philosophical during the preamble of his budget presentation; this time opining that while we are all sitting still, the earth is moving around the sun at 66,000 miles an hour and the sun and our solar system are hurtling through the galaxy at 483,000 miles an hour.
County spending, meanwhile, speeds along at a dizzying clip. The proposed budget represents an increase of $39.3 million, up nearly 3 percent. And as our galaxy careens through space at 1.3 million miles per hour, total county expenditures jump $77.3 million, up 8 percent.
After waiting nearly a decade for the harvest of revaluation, the county will reap an estimated total assessed property valuation of $110.6 billion, to include a net revaluation increase of $9.5 billion, throwing off about $907 million in property tax, up from this year’s take of nearly $834 million. Total sales taxes jump about $10 million to $180.7 million.
Jones pitched his spending plan as a “reinvestment” in county services and programs, after cutting some $150 million during the last two years. The county, in that light, has taken to the spike of renewed spending like a junkie fresh out of rehab and looking to score a fix.
Jones’ budget includes a $26 million bump for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, bringing its operating budget to $326 million. Jones said a bulk of the increase, about $15 million, was meant to save 260 teacher jobs and to help CMS avoid increasing class sizes by two students for grades 4-12. The manager’s recommended operating increase falls shy of the $50 million boost CMS wants, and that commissioners still could grant.
Jones on Tuesday night dropped the none-too-subtle hint that if his proposed spending increases weren’t enough to satisfy the county’s every want and need, commissioners could pursue a quarter-cent sales tax increase. The take from that would fetch $7.2 million in the upcoming fiscal year and $30 million in fiscal year 2013. The difference is because the county couldn’t start collecting the revenue in FY12 until, appropriately, April 1.
Overall, under Jones’s proposed budget, CMS’s total allotment – operating and capital – grows $31.5 million, topping out at $425.5 million in county funding. That doesn’t include $10 million funneled from county coffers to cover lotto money the district is losing to the state.
County employees (all 4,437 full-time positions of them) come out big winners in their big boss’s budget recommendation, which boasts a $13.5 million increase for pay perks – what Jones called funding “operational excellence” – to include restoring merit pay increases of up to 4.5 percent, restoring county contributions to employee retirement plans, and fully covering increases to healthcare and dental premiums. Employees currently cover 25 percent.
Even county commissioners benefit from the manager’s largess, with their recommended allotment bumping to $418,715 from $372,629.
Part of Jones’ proposed budget is covered by $42 million in redirected funding, to include eliminating about $16 million the county gives to Carolina Healthcare System and Presbyterian Novant Healthcare to provide indigent care.
Jones said that 88 percent of his spending plan pays for services and programs ranked in the county’s top three priority levels, which include the likes of $1 million for the US Whitewater Center; $1.8 million for so-called business investment grants; $200,000 for the CIAA basketball tourney; $149,000 for the amorphous Charlotte Regional Partnership; and $62,500 for the Nextel NASCAR All-Star event.
The park and recreation department tees up a $1.2 million increase, for a total county appropriation of $23.6 million. Central Piedmont Community College snags $43.4 million, a 9.9 percent increase of $3.9 million, with $25.4 million for its operating budget and $17.5 million for debt service.
The library system checks out with a recommended budget of $23.4 million, an increase of $2.7 million that Jones said will allow the library to extend hours at regional branches and avoid closing up to six community branches.
The manager’s recommended budget grows spending for outside service agencies, a.k.a. community service grants, by 24 percent, topping out at $3.1 million. Included in the mix: $650,000 for the ASC’s National Center for Arts & Technology; $50,000 for the Latin American Coalition; $15,500 for 100 Black Men of Charlotte; $55,000 for the Community Culinary School; $50,000 for the Urban League of Central Carolinas; and $50,000 for the Center for Community Transitions.
The spending increases, Jones said, are appropriate after the county had weathered the worst of the recession.
“Although the winds of change continue to swirl around us,” he said, “we find ourselves once again standing on stable ground.” This as the county stumbles around an 11.2 percent unemployment rate and finds itself down about 30,000 jobs from pre-recession levels. “More recently, though, we’ve seen the sun emerging from the darkness of the Great Recession,” Jones said.
One can only guess it’s the same sun that’s hurtling through the galaxy at 483,000 miles an hour.
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