Budget vote delayed over concerns

Mount Airy officials were poised to vote on the city’s budget for the next fiscal year, on one condition: that no citizens voiced concerns about it during a public hearing.

And this is exactly what happened during a meeting of the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners Thursday night, when a final decision on the 2024-2025 spending plan was scheduled.

However, due to the aforementioned concerns, Mayor Jon Cawley said a vote on the proposed budget is now set for the board’s next scheduled meeting on June 6.

Those issues emerged from a familiar source, John Pritchard, a candidate for a North Ward city commissioner in the March primary and a self-proclaimed watchdog over municipal finances for many years.

On the surface, the preliminary budget for the upcoming fiscal year contains good news for citizens. This chiefly includes the property tax rate projected to remain at 60 cents per $100 of assessed valuation — unchanged since 2018.

Yet Pritchard took a differing view.

“I know the big news was, no tax hike,” he said in remarks during a public forum of Thursday night’s meeting regarding the budget’s release on May 2.

“My question is, why no tax cut?” Pritchard added.

He argued that Mount Airy’s property tax rate is higher than most cities in the state.

“We take in more money per capita (per person) than most any average town in our peer group, which I think is like 48 towns, or even in the whole state,” Pritchard reasoned.

“But we spend more per capita.”

The forum speaker also took aim at a 5% water-sewer hike approved 4-1 by the commissioners earlier this year and incorporated into the proposed 2024-2025 budget.

That increase is a response to Mount Airy being at a warning level in terms of generating revenues at a fast-enough pace to make infrastructure improvements to the city utility system in a timely manner.

Pritchard wondered why a fund balance — also known as a surplus, or savings — in the water-sewer operation is not being tapped for that purpose.

“We’ve been sitting on five-to-six-million-dollars’ surplus in the Water-Sewer Department,” he said.

“Why haven’t we been using it for that?”

Pritchard said the surplus has grown even without a higher water-sewer rate.

Another gripe for him surrounds plans in the budget to add a new curbside recycling truck with a cost in the $400,000 range.

Pritchard questioned this in light of recycling’s shaky future locally and elsewhere because of changing markets for commodities. What once was a money-making proposition for Mount Airy now costs $129,000 in operating costs and for its recyclables to be hauled away by a private company.

The forum speaker pointed out that many communities have ended curbside recycling because it is “cost-prohibitive” and predicted Mount Airy will do so in several years.

This will leave the city with a costly truck on its hands, according to Pritchard.

He further took issue with the budget vote being listed on the agenda for Thursday night’s meeting, in the wake of the public hearing the same evening.

Pritchard called that “almost arrogant” on city officials’ part.

“It’s like it doesn’t matter what the public says, they (officials) already had their mind made up,” he said.

City officials respond

The fact Pritchard complained at all was enough to derail a vote Thursday night, Mayor Cawley advised.

He said there had been an understanding among council members that if no negative comments or major questions occurred during the public hearing, the vote would come then.

But due to Pritchard’s input, the decision is now set for early June.

Despite that, the mayor and others responded to points cited by Pritchard.

One concerned the water rate increase.

“There are very few things that haven’t gone up,” said City Manager Darren Lewis, who also addressed the property tax rate.

“It is hard to truly compare counties,” Lewis said of looking at rates.

Many variables go into this, including some cities not offering as many services as Mount Airy, he suggested.

Cawley offered similar remarks, saying certain municipalities might have lower tax rates, but charge stormwater runoff and other fees that make citizens’ overall burden more.

The recycling truck stance by Pritchard also drew a response from the mayor, who said even if recycling ends the vehicle can be deployed for regular trash pickups.

“If we stop recycling in four years, that truck won’t know the difference between a blue cart and a green cart,” he noted in reference to the receptacles used for each.

Commissioner Tom Koch referred to a curbside recycling participation rate of up to 70 %as a reason to maintain the program.