Town Manager Kip Padgett’s budget for fiscal year 2016-2017 is the weightiest item on the agenda when the Wake Forest Town Board meets Tuesday, June 21, at 7 p.m. in town hall, but there are some others could be interesting.
The meeting will begin with a proclamation signed by the commissioners and mayor and presented by Mayor Vivian Jones to members of the Joyner family in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Shorty’s Restaurant. Shorty’s was featured last week at Friday Night on White and it will be the subject of a program presented by the Wake Forest Historical Association on Sunday, Oct. 2, at the Wake Forest Historical Museum.
The first of two public hearings will consider a request filed by Joseph M. and Debra Ludas to designate their home, separate building and lot – known as the Powers-Dodd House and Powers Store – at 102-112 West North Avenue as a local historic landmark.
The second hearing will be on the amendment to the fire impact fee ordinance, an amendment which recommends significantly lower fees for most new construction than adopted in 2007. The study by Alex Warmuth with Rafterlis consulting firm – he also did the original study in 2007 – found that the residential and employment growth did not reach the levels projected in 2007, that there has been a change in the management at the Wake Forest Fire Department and that there was more growth in the commercial sector than manufacturing and industry.
The proposed rate for single-family houses is proposed to go from $592 to $454; the rate for multi-family units from $481 to $341; 1,000 sq. ft. of commercial from $649 to $767; and 1,000 sq. ft. of industrial and manufacturing from $389 to $265. Jones has spoken about further lowering the fees to 80 percent or less than what Warmuth proposes.
The commissioners will also consider whether to agree with the planning board’s recommendation of last week and approve the rezoning and master plan for the Kitchin farm property at the intersection of Ligon Mill Road and Burlington Mills Road. The 146-acre site would be developed with 263 single-family home sites with 30 acres in park and open space and 46 acres dedicated to the town. The traffic study required by the town, who also hires the consulting firm, and paid for by the developer calls for several traffic improvements at the four entrances (two on Burlington Mills Road and two on Ligon Mill Road) as well as a southbound two-way left turn lane on Ligon Mill at the Burlington Mills intersection.
As to the budget, no town resident spoke for or against the budget during the public hearing a month ago. At the town board’s budget work session (See the June 1 Gazette) the only action was to rescind the end-of-year true-up for the Wake Forest Fire Department, an action the board reversed at its June 7 meeting.
The budget Padgett proposed keeps the property tax rate at 52 cents per $100 valuation with 41 cents to be used for general government operations and 11 cents for a contract with the Wake Forest Fire Department. This was not a true revenue neutral rate after the county-wide property revaluation – that would have been 53.1 cents – but it is enough to allow the town to hire 16 new employees.
Padgett and Finance Director Aileen Staples conservatively estimate the town will receive $23,641,085 from the property taxes and have a total if $40,724,500 from all revenues. Since they estimate the property tax collections at 97.5 percent when the town has been averaging 99-plus percent, the amount in the budget will be larger.
The only unknown about the budget now is the rates town electric customers will pay, and it appears the electric rate study will be completed and unveiled next Tuesday night. The rates are expected to be lower than current ones because the town was able to shed such a large part of its electric department debt last year when it sold its shares in power plants to Duke Progress Energy.
North Carolina counties, cities and towns are required to approve a balanced budget for the following fiscal year by June 30 of each year.
