By David Purtell

david.purtell@salisburypost.com

Salisbury City Council wants the city to dip into its savings rather than increase taxes to cover costs for the next fiscal year.

In all, the city could end up taking more than $1.5 million from its fund balance to cover the cost of projects and purchases.

City staff had proposed a budget that includes a property tax increase of 1.49 cents, which would bring the city’s tax rate to 67.18 cents per $100 of valuation. But during a budget workshop Monday, council members decided to try and avoid raising taxes.

Council’s plan does include keeping a small increase, 0.31 cents, in the property tax rate to make the budget revenue neutral — which means the city would generate the same overall amount of property tax as the prior year. The rest of city staff’s proposed increase was meant to cover the loss of the business privilege license tax revenue, $320,000 a year, now that the tax has expired.

Council members discussed the possibility of using money from the city’s fund balance, which is kind of like a savings or emergency fund, to replace the lost revenue from the privilege license tax, but were hesitant to do so since the revenue is an annual appropriation — typically, taking money from the fund balance is for one-time-only expenditures.

City officials said Salisbury has a healthy fund balance, which is expected to total more than $12 million after the end of the current fiscal year on June 30. The state wants municipalities to have a fund balance equal to 8 percent of their annual general fund budget. Salisbury’s fund balance is currently around 33 percent of the annual budget.

It was Mayor Paul Woodson who initially said he was against raising taxes. Council members Brian Miller and Karen Alexander said they weren’t opposed to a tax increase if it’s necessary.

If the city doesn’t raise taxes based on the cost of doing business, it’s just kicking the can down the road, Alexander said.

Councilman Pete Kennedy initially brought up the idea of dipping into the fund balance.

The proposed budget already included using money from the fund balance: $150,000 for the city’s neglected housing initiative, $78,000 for new police equipment and $500,000, to help pay the cost of the Rowan-Salisbury School System’s new central office building downtown. Council approved the financial assistance last year.

During the workshop, council also suggested using $550,000 from the fund balance for implementing part of the Complete Streets plan approved by council in January. The plan lays out ways to improve pedestrian safety along Innes and Long streets and upgrade the appearance of the two corridors.

Another $346,000 would be used for adding bike lanes and sidewalks along Newsome Road, a project expected to start this fall at the earliest. And $275,000 would be used to fund downtown incentive grants.

Woodson and Mayor Pro Tem Maggie Blackwell said they want the city to put more money into street paving. Blackwell said poor street conditions in the city are the complaint she hears most from residents. She called it a “quality of life” issue.

“I’d like to address a pothole in the budget,” she said.

Currently, $300,000 a year goes toward street paving. At that level of funding, the timetable for repaving all city roads is 60 years. Council didn’t set a specific amount to increase the funding by, and instead asked city staff to research the matter.

Council will vote on the final draft of the budget during next week’s regular council meeting.

Other discussions included:

• Police Chief Rory Collins said his department has the money, $60,000, to buy 60 body cameras for officers to wear. He said some of the money is coming from a private donor and the rest from the Asset Forfeiture Program. Officers should start using the cameras later this year, he said.

• Council members said they were OK with a 75-cent increase in the city’s residential stormwater fee, which would make the fee $5. It will be the first increase since the fee was started three years ago.

• Council gave the OK for the proposed increase in Salisbury-Rowan Utilities’ tap fees after SRU Director Jim Behmer said the increase is meant to recover costs. “We’re not making money on our taps,” he said, adding the city will still be in the middle of the road on tap fees when compared to other cities.

• Assistant City Manager John Sofley explained the proposed fee increase for Fibrant’s TV packages is to keep up with what the city is paying to its channel providers. Other cable companies, such as Time Warner Cable, are passing the cost on to to customers also, Sofley said.

Fibrant’s TV packages will see increases ranging from 6 percent to 18 percent depending on the package.

Contact Reporter David Purtell at 704-797-4264.