Finance Committee endorses Winston-Salem budget with 10% tax hike (2024)

A 10% tax increase for property owners in Winston-Salem became a near-certainty this week as the city’s Finance Committee endorsed City Manager Pat Pate’s proposed 2024-25 budget.

The Finance Committee met Thursday at City Hall for a wrap-up of budget discussions, and found council members happy with the budget for improving employee pay and beefing up the city bus system.

“I’m really happy with the direction and the philosophy of this budget,” Northwest Ward Council Member Jeff MacIntosh said. “We are spending more on maintenance, less priority on new things to buy and have to maintain in the future. I do like the fact that we are paying our staff more. To be the quality organization we want to be, we have to pay our staff members more.”

MacIntosh went on to say that the city bus system has been in need of an overhaul for many years.

“We went out to find out how much it costs to have a good one,” he said. “We found out, and we need to pay for it and have a good transit system.”

The full Winston-Salem City Council is expected to pass the budget on June 17. If approved as presented by the city manager, the tax rate would increase from 66.10 cents for every $100 of taxable property to 72.5 cents. That’s an increase of 6.4 cents, or 9.7% in the tax rate.

Currently, the owner of a piece of property with a tax value of $150,000 pays $991.50 in city taxes. The tax bill for that same owner would rise to $1,087.50 if the council approves the budget.

The total proposed budget amounts to $658.9 million, an increase of $51.1 million, or 8.4%, over the current budget.

City officials said that 3.9 cents of the increase in the tax rate would go to increases in the general fund fueled by higher pay, equipment replacement and a need to subsidize public assembly sites such as Bowman Gray Stadium and the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds.

The other 2.5 cents of the tax increase is going for improved bus service that the city hopes to see from RATP-Dev USA LLC, which was recently awarded the contract to operate the city bus system.

During discussion on Thursday, North Ward Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem D.D. Adams said the salary increases in the budget will help the city catch up to pay levels in surrounding places that compete for employees.

The city budget proposes raising the minimum wage paid to a city employee to $18, but Adams noted that Greensboro is looking at a $20 minimum wage.

Adams acknowledged that some city residents won’t like the tax increases that are coming.

“This budget is not just about compensation, this budget is about replacing equipment ... ensuring our employees and staff have all the necessary tools and equipment, fleet and whatever they need to do their jobs for the citizens of Winston-Salem,” Adams said.

Northeast Ward Council Member Barbara Burke appealed for the city to do more to deal with blight created by illegal dumping and unmown grass on rental properties.

The city manager said improving community appearance is a key issue the city plans to focus on in the coming year.

The property tax increase is not the only high cost residents will face in the coming fiscal year:

Despite the increase, Pate told council members that the proposed budget adds no new nonprofit agencies to the ones the city donates money to. During the Finance Committee’s public hearing on May 30, speakers from various nonprofit groups spoke to thank the city for past support, ask for more money or ask to be added to the list of nonprofits that the city funds.

Pate said the funding requests will be reviewed in the fall.

“This is really a flat, basic budget,” Pate said. “There are a lot of agencies out there I know that have needs and requests and have not been funded in the past.”

The city plans to revamp how it goes about funding outside agencies, Pate said. That’s when decisions will be made on the funding for the groups.