Orange County approved its $327 million budget plan for Fiscal Year 2027-28 on Tuesday, marking the final local government in our community to do so before summer break.
The county’s plan sees an increase in spending (6.87%) compared to the current fiscal year and another increase in property taxes – 4.22 cents per $100 of valuation – marking the fifth consecutive budget cycle with a raise on the rate. The increase is specifically to better fund the two public school districts, while implementing several other reductions across the government to prevent an even further spike.
When sharing his proposed budget in May, county manager Travis Myren said his staff’s top priority in crafting the plan was minimizing the tax increase for property owners. Even with that mission and after making reductions, a combination of inflation, lost property tax revenue and other factors led him to suggest a 3.75-cent increase in the rate.
During their amendment meeting two weeks ago, commissioners were split and begrudgingly passed several changes that would raise the tax rate by 4.22 cents, largely to help increase funding for the two public school districts. But on Tuesday, some of the elected officials waffled on whether to go through with that choice. Commissioner Phyllis Portie-Ascott said after speaking further with constituents – especially those in rural areas who also face an increase in fire district taxes this cycle – she wanted to revisit Myren’s initial tax rate proposal.
“I know we say, ‘It’s only “X” amount,'” said Portie-Ascott. “And when I talk to people in the community who are hurting, that extra amount is a lot when they already don’t have enough.
“I’m hoping that we really will consider directing the manager to go back and look for where else we can pick up some efficiencies as opposed to increasing it above the manager’s [recommended] 3.75 cents,” she concluded before making a motion to adopt the budget and its amendments, but with the original tax rate.
Portie-Ascott’s motion got support from Commissioners Marilyn Carter and Earl McKee – the latter of whom voted against the amendments back on June 4. McKee gave an impassioned explanation to his vote against the proposal. After saying during the budget amendment meeting that he would not support any tax increase above four cents, the senior-most commissioner doubled down on his stance and said he finds the raise to be “egregious” on residents’ tax bills. He said he could barely stomach the manager’s proposed 3.75-cent increase – but trusted the staff would be able to find reductions to further limit the tax burden for homeowners.
“We did this in 2010-11…and when I came on the board to 2011-12, it was pretty bad,” said McKee. “It was coming out of a recession. I remember cuts to personnel. I remember cuts to programs. I remember cuts to schools. I remember buyouts and a host of other options that we had to activate.
“There was a hair on fire reaction from a lot of people,” he added, “that the world was going to end for Orange County and it did not – and it will not now.”
Earl McKee speaks at the Board of Orange County Commissioners Meeting discussing budget plans in Chapel Hill, NC on June 16, 2026. (Photo via Elena Pace.)
But, McKee concluded, if the county does not make hard decisions on budget cuts, he believes many residents will become even more burdened by the tax rate and forced to either look elsewhere or face deeper financial challenges.
“If we continue to assume that it’s only a penny, it’s only two pennies or three pennies or four pennies…we will go back into the same spiral that occurred in the late 90s and the early 2000s in which those boards enacted two-cent to eight-cent tax increases almost continually for 10-year period.”
Overshadowing the commissioners’ decision is potential changes to how property tax rates are set, as lawmakers in the North Carolina General Assembly are seeking a constitutional amendment to limit how much they can be raised by local governments. Additionally, the county is grappling with the loss of millions of dollars as rental properties use a state tax loophole to decrease their property tax bills under the guise of offering affordable housing.
Commissioner Amy Fowler referenced both of these factors in her own reasoning for why she did vote for a higher tax increase. She also indicated that Portie-Ascott’s motion would leave the board and Orange County residents with more questions than solutions ahead of its June 30 deadline to approve a budget.
“With this amendment,” Fowler said, “we’re directing the manager to find 47 cents worth of cuts [per $100] to meet an arbitrary number so that someone can say ‘we didn’t raise it above the original increase.’ That’s not meeting our needs, it’s not transparent, and it leaves out the public.
“The state’s actions,” she added, “actually behooves us to make our budget actually meet our needs – because in the future we will be limited in our increases. Not that I want to increase for the sake of increasing, but if [an increase] meets a need that we feel we need to be meeting. We did do the very hard work [on this budget]. It was not easy, it was a compromise, and I think we should stay the course.”
Board Chair Jean Hamilton shared similar sentiments, saying the weeks-long work of the budget process is when those concerns were meant to be hashed out. She pointed to the public sharing its perspective and the county staff bringing potential reduction options, and said those were times to push for further cuts to services or projects.
“We had many public hearings,” said Hamilton. “We had many work sessions where we had the opportunity to get options. We asked the county manager come with options…and those options were out there. Again, we showed that we were looking at everything, and commissioners did not take up some of those options. And so, to me, nothing has changed between now and [June 4].”
Portie-Ascott’s motion ultimately failed 3-3, with Commissioner Sally Greene siding with Hamilton and Fowler to vote against the resolution. Then, Portie-Ascott and Carter voted in favor of Hamilton’s ensuing resolution to pass the budget with its amendments and 4.22-cent property tax rate increase. McKee still voted in dissent, while Commissioner Jamezetta Bedford was absent from the meeting.
Even with those tax increases, more than 70% of Orange County government departments will see a funding reduction of some kind in the upcoming fiscal year and raises for county staff will be below the level recommended to keep pace with inflation. Additionally, the package also included funding for the Chapel Hill Public Library — an item of much attention during the crafting process. Myren’s proposal recommended phasing out the county government’s roughly $620,000 in annual contributions to the library’s operating budget across two years, partially because of the county now operating a southern library branch in Carrboro. After fielding feedback from the public and the Town of Chapel Hill, the county commissioners approved an amendment to reduce funding over a three-year period instead of two, leaving the library with $414,216 of supplemental funding for FY27 and the Town of Chapel Hill more time to determine a strategy for either replacing the money or cutting library costs.
Watch the full Board of Commissioners meeting from June 16 and get more details from the county on the budget package on the Orange County government’s website.
Featured image via Elena Pace.
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