The Town of Chapel Hill became the latest local government in Orange County to adopt its budget for the upcoming fiscal year on Wednesday night.
The unanimous vote of 8-0 approved town staff to operate on a $170 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year – a slight increase compared to Fiscal Year 26, but achieved without requiring a new property tax increase thanks to recent revenue from sales taxes. Council Member Elizabeth Sharp was absent for Wednesday’s meeting and did not cast a vote.
The council made few adjustments to the budget from Town Manager Ted Voorhees’ proposed draft from May — his first in the role — with the only additions being two finalized grant totals.
“We’re grounded,” Voorhees told the council, “in our commitment to supporting our employees with competitive compensation and sustainable benefits, funding and strengthening our core municipal services, advancing your strategic priorities, and progressing towards fiscal sustainability guided by our five year budget outlook.”
Those budget priorities translate to a 4% market pay increase and healthcare increases for town staff along with the addition of three positions, less reliance on the fund balance for annual operation costs, and allocations to aid the town council’s long-term planning efforts.
A major topic around Chapel Hill’s budget this year is not reflected in the final version passed: funding cuts for the Chapel Hill Public Library. With the Orange County government seemingly decreasing its allocations to the town library starting next fiscal year, questions swirled about how the town government would respond and cover the funding gap.
When asked by Council Members Camille Berry and Paris Miller-Foushee about it on Wednesday, Voorhees said the staff’s approach is to “not take any drastic measures” – partially because the county’s budget will not be finalized until Tuesday, June 16. But if it is adopted with the amendment to decrease Chapel Hill library funding across three years, the town is creating contingency plans for how and when to address that imbalance. As discussed in May, those include potentially charging non-Chapel Hill residents an access fee, adding fees for room reservations, and trimming back part-time library staff.
If the county government budget is adopted as agreed upon following the Board of Commissioners’ amendment session, Orange County will draw down funding for the Chapel Hill Public Library over the next three years. That is a change from the two years proposed by the county manager, but still represents an eventual loss of 14% of the library’s total operating budget. (Photo by Aaron Keck/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Miller-Foushee asked whether the town could or should use its excess fund balance money to cover the library’s funding gap, but Voorhees responded by saying he doesn’t believe town residents shouldering that burden is equitable.
“At some point,” Voorhees said, “if that [funding model] changes so that only town residents are paying for something, then I think we owe it to our taxpayers to make sure that we’re not subsidizing non-town residents with free services, essentially. It’s a tough thing to have to tell folks who might be benefitting from a service that [the] situation has changed and, through no fault of their own, we’ll have to consider fees.
“So, those are the kinds of things we’re going to have to think through over the next few months,” the town manager concluded. “We’ll wait to see what the county budget is and then council will need to weigh in once we give you the analysis so you can decide how we’re going to implement this.”
Few council members shared comments on Wednesday night about the budget, but those who did offered support for it. Council Member Amy Ryan said she likes the “philosophy” behind the budget and credited the town staff for their work.
“I think we’re making big strides in investing and getting the town on the sustainable fiscal path that we’ve been working on for many years,” she said. “So, [I’m] pleased to see that continuing and am really happy. I think it’s going to put our town in a good position.”
Mayor Jess Anderson agrees with those sentiments and told 97.9 The Hill she is encouraged by the efforts to wean the town off of using its fund balance for critical operations. She also shared her anticipation for a spending effort beyond the budget process, which Voorhees teased on Wednesday: using excess fund balance money from last year to support staff work to construct greenway projects.
“[They] can start building quick-win, short connection greenways in town instead of having to contract out for all of those, which is quite expensive and takes a long time,” Anderson said of the early plan. “So, I’m really excited about that and getting moving toward action on greenway development – which is such an important piece of our overall Complete Community vision, our affordability work, and getting people out of their cars.”
The Chapel Hill Town Council will meet one more time before a summer break, gathering on Wednesday, June 17 to discuss its Complete Community vision’s implementation and the land use management ordinance rewrite.
Featured photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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Chapel Hill Approves FY27 Budget with No Tax Increases; Will Revisit Library Funding, Greenways in Fall Chapelboro.com.
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