Town approves scaled back budget

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  • The Town of Highlands started a new budget year on Wednesday.
    The Town of Highlands started a new budget year on Wednesday.
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During the Highlands Board of Commissioners’ June meeting, the board approved an operating budget of $20,159,080 for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The budget comes with no ad valorem property tax increase over year prior.

Town manager Josh Ward presented the budget during a public hearing on the document and noted that the town’s normally conservative budget approach was made even more strict due to the uncertainty surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“When we were putting this budget together we didn’t feel like a property tax increase was appropriate this year, but we also realize that we are going to generate less revenue than in previous years,” Ward said. “So we had to cut some things out of the budget on the expenditure side to make sure everything balanced.”

One item that was cut out was a proposed 2 percent cost of living adjustment for town employees. Commissioner Amy Patterson had suggested removing the COLA during a budget work session in May, citing the tough economic times facing not only the town but also the taxpayers.

Commissioner Marc Hehn advocated for the COLA, and proposed reducing the amount to one percent. Commissioner Donnie Callaway asked that the COLA be reviewed at the mid-year budget meeting in December to see if the adjustment could be implemented then, or given to the employees as a holiday bonus.

“I think that is something we can look at once we get to the mid-year and see just how much COVID-19 has hurt us on the revenue side,” Ward said. “Hopefully, we will have a little more clarity by then.”

Included in the budget is the transition of a 0.15 per $100 of property valuation local option sales tax away from recreation projects and into the street paving fund.

“While that tax revenue was earmarked for recreation projects we were able to complete several upgrades,” mayor Patrick Taylor said. “Now we hope to do the same with street paving. We have a list of streets in town that need attention and hopefully we can address those while the local option sales tax is earmarked for paving and road maintenance.”

Taylor added that multiple street paving projects are already in the town’s pipeline for later this year, including Cullasaja Road, Cowan Street, Hickory Street and Church Street alley.

Ward noted that two of the town’s enterprise funds required transfers from the electric fund to balance their budget at the end of the 2019-20 fiscal year. The sanitation fund received $230,150 from the electric fund and the capital projects fund received $124,072.

“Going forward into the next fiscal year we need to take a hard look at what needs to be done to get some of these enterprise funds back to balancing themselves,” Ward said. “I plan on digging into the possible solutions prior to starting next year’s budget work sessions.”

The 2020-21 town budget passed by unanimous vote of the board.