Padgett unveils 2024-2025 budget
After a county-wide real estate revaluation that increased property values by almost 50 percent or more, Wake Forest Town Manager Kip Padgett is recommending a new tax rate of $0.42, a rate above the revenue neutral tax rate of $0.3460. He unveiled the plan Tuesday night, May 7, during the town board’s work session. Padgett’s proposed $128,668,100 budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year includes 13 new staff positions, seven of them for the Wake Forest Police Department. There were no increases in the town’s health insurance premiums for the sixth year, but there were mandated increases in the two retirement funds for town employees. In Padgett’s full three-page letter to the town commissioners, he says the reason for the change from the revenue-neutral rate to the $0.42 is because, in a reassessment year he must add to the revenue-neutral rate of $0.3460 the following: Fire station 6 and public safety