BREAKING MON. NIGHT: Mebane city council scraps city manager's proposed 2-cent property tax hike – alamancenews.com

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Mebane’s city council’s overrode city manager Richard White’s planned 2-cent tax increase, voting instead to continue the city’s current tax rate of 37 cents per $100 valuation for another year.
White had revised his original 2-cent property tax hike to split the increase into two parts: one cent for an additional penny designated for future capital projects, raising the special designated tax rate from two to three cents, with the additional one-cent increase going to an increase in financing the general fund.
White made the changes based on a May 13 budget work session at which a consensus had appeared to embrace the one-and-one cent split to finance the $46.8 million general fund budget.
Councilman Jonathan White (no relation to the city manager) said the one-and-one approach didn’t give enough “clear direction” to staff.  He said he was not comfortable with even a small tax rate increase without having a long-term plan.
So when councilman White recommended that the council scrap both parts of the proposed property tax hike, he garnered the support of fellow council members Montrena Hadley, who had announced opposition to any tax rate increase, as well as Sean Ewing and mayor pro tem Tim Bradley, both of whom had earlier appeared sympathetic to the one-and-one approach.
Only Katie Burkholder voted against the budget, which passed 4-1. Burkholder insisted that the additional one-cent for future capital projects should be increased to three cents.
White’s motion also included a long-term commitment to developing a five-year plan to provide a more comprehensive approach to future spending for both capital projects and projections of city personnel needs.
Councilman’s White plan will draw an additional $554,736 from the city’s fund balance, for a total of about $2.2 million, to finance this year’s budget.
Bradley said that taking the extra half-million dollars from the fund balance was “not a crisis.”
The council preserved the manager’s recommended pay raises for itself, mayor pro tem Tim Bradley, and mayor Ed Hooks.  City manager White had recommended increases of 10 percent for the four council members (Burkholder, Ewing, Hadley, and White), 15 percent for Bradley, and 20 percent for Hooks.
Councilmen White and Ewing who had been outspoken about the proposed increased council pay linked to city manager White’s earlier tax increase, said they did not object so long as the raises were not financed by a higher property tax rate.
The council left intact manager White’s 10.5 percent increase for water and sewer rates, a 3 percent cost-of-living increase for city employees, and higher subsidies for increased employee medical and dental coverage, which were up 6 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. They also continued his recommendation for eight new employees, down one from his original budget presentation of early May.
In an interview after the council meeting, Burkholder stressed that the failure to increase the capital projects fund could lead to higher property tax increases in the future to finance projects.
“We’re going to have these future expenses,” she said.  “No amount of additional analysis will change that.”
But Ewing credited his colleague, Jonathan White, with having done a “comprehensive analysis” of the budget, and particularly agreed with his inclusion of a five-year plan.

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