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No tax increase in $126M county budget

Henderson County residents would see no tax increase under a budget County Manager Steve Wyatt presented to the Board of Commissioners on Monday night.


Based on what he described as “the most comprehensive public evaluation of the people’s money of any local government anywhere,” the proposed $126 million budget is $2.3 million, or 1.8 percent, higher than the current year’s spending plan. Wyatt drafted the proposed budget after long work sessions earlier in the year in which commissioners set priorties for programs and capital spending.
The budget includes debt service of more than $16 million for capital building plans, including the $30 million health sciences building, the new Early College and alternative school building at Blue Ridge Community College. The county is not yet paying for a new $53 million Hendersonville High School or a $13 million renovation of the core classroom building for another use; nor does it include a new or renovated Edneyville Elementary School — the next big school project after HHS.
Wyatt cautioned that the commissioners could decide a higher property tax is needed if they ask for new operations and other capital spending. A property tax increase will hang in the balance, Wyatt said, when county voters decide the fate of a proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase.
“That’s not just going to be a referendum on the sales tax,” he said. “That’s going to be a choice between higher property taxes or a little bit higher sales tax.”

Wyatt extolled the "value" of Henderson County's operations, saying its tax rate is lower than all but two coastal counties.

"We don't have oceanfront property like Craven and Brunswick counties yet we maintain one of the lowest tax rates in the state in urban counties (over 100,000 people)," he said.

But given the longterm capital spendng the commissioners have committed to, the county will have trouble holding the line, he added.

Total capital improvements will top $100 million, he said, while on the operations side the county faces increasing calls for ambulance service and sheriff's service.

"Those needs are now starting to come at you faster," he said. The sales tax referendum is critical, he added. The quarter cent sales tax would raise about $2.5 million — or about the same as a 2-cent tax increase would generate. Residents will vote on the local option sales tax on Nov. 8.

"You have no control over whether or not that will pass," he said. "There will need to be either drastic cuts, in budget, including perhaps elimination of progams, and there will have to be deep cuts throughout going into the future. The referendum in November is more than a referendum on the sales tax. It is de facto a referendum on property tax or sales tax. One of those is going to have to increase in the future."