Padgett maintains same tax rate

Tuesday evening Wake Forest Town Manager Kip Padgett unveiled his budget for fiscal 2019-2020 beginning in June which keeps the property tax rate at 52 cents and all fees the same as last year. Wednesday morning Padgett, Chief Financial Officer Aileen Staples, Senior Budget Analyst Ben Blevins and Communications and Public Information Director Bill Crabtree held an information session for local reporters.

The town is prosperous and growing. The population is now 45,264 officially and an estimated 2,000 people move into town each year. The combined tax base in Wake and Franklin counties is $5,658,750,000 and growing with each new house and business. The general fund budget for 2019-2020 will be just over $48 million and the electric fund budget is $22,711,250.

The new aquatic center in Holding Park will open under contracted management over the Memorial Day weekend for its first full year of operation. The community center in E. Carroll Joyner Park will open this summer as will the Northern Wake Senior Center which the town owns but does not operate.

The town does face challenges that include maintaining its service levels for a growing population. Padgett, the mayor and commissioners will have to decide this fall if the town can add the independent Wake Forest Fire Department as a town department. Wake County will revalue all real property in 2020, and the town will have to decide on a new tax rate. There is a need to improve streets and greenways and meet other capital needs which could mean a bond referendum in 2020. The town is about to take over ownership of the Smith Creek Reservoir from Raleigh, which took it as part of the 2005 water-sewer merger. Padgett said the town can use it as an amenity – great for fishing and boating in non-motorized boats – but the dam was built in 1964 and might need some work. The reservoir will also act as an emergency water system for Raleigh

The current tax rate of 52 cents is split into 11 cents for the contract with the fire department (which came to over $6 million this year) and 42 cents for town government operations which includes the monthly fees of $10.79 for trash/garbage pickup and $3.51 for recycling pickup. There is a serious situation nationwide now with recycling because China is not accepting all it used to. For more information about that and what it will mean for town residents, please see the article in this issue about recycling.

The proposed budget only funds six new positions out of the 20 requested, a change from past years when in the last three years the town added 31 new positions, 14 added to the police department last year. Padgett and Staples said they knew last year when they added a new debt model to budgeting that the next two years would be a little bit tough. Much of the debt the town has taken on is due in the next two years, there is a new retirement plan and, Staples said the town needed a 2.5-cent property tax increase. “We’ve been able to avoid that.” Padgett said, “We need to catch our breath and just hire what we really need.” The town still needs to issue bonds for the $2.75 million for the fiber system connecting all town offices and buildings.

The new positions in the electric fund are for an administrative assistant and a meter assistant at the soon-to-open Unicon Drive location for the electric department. The town purchased a building and some land there for $2.9 million late last year, but Staples borrowed $3.5 million, the difference being used to upgrade the building for the electric department. The third position is for a groundsman to be part of a bucket crew. It has been difficult to hire linemen, both said, so they are going to try to train their own through an apprentice program, taking a young man straight out of high school perhaps, training him on the job and through classes at Vance-Granville Community College. Staples said she knows public works also needs a three-person street crew which was one of the last requests cut in this budget.

In the general fund, two of the three positions are for a manager and assistant manager at the new Joyner Park Community Center and a building inspector in the inspections department. There are also three unfunded positions in the budget. Two can be filled when two people in planning and finance retire, allowing the town to hire replacements near or at the minimum of the pay scale. The third would convert a parttime position to fulltime in the downtown development department.

Some projects in the budget are a redesign of the dog park at Flaherty Park and paving the town-owned parking lot between East Jones Avenue and Wait Avenue, a lot behind buildings fronting on South White Street.

A much larger project is an agreement between the town and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to market and develop over 200 acres the seminary owns between Patterson Hall on North Wingate Street and the Wake Forest Crossing shopping center on Capital Boulevard.

Padgett in his manager’s message said the town, “acting through the Business and Industry Partnership formed by the town, and the seminary will jointly fund any required studies to make the site one of the best locations for technology in a live-work-play environment. The site is currently undergoing site certification through our partnership with ElectriCities.”

The site is cut with streams and has some steep slopes. Jason Cannon, the town’s economic developer and president of the Wake Forest Business & Industry Partnership, responded to a question by saying, “It is the intent of WFBIP and SEBTS to develop the property into a live-WORK-play park focused on tech-related companies. Every site faces topographical and other challenges to development such as transportation and infrastructure to name just a few. This site is certainly no different. A part of the analysis underway by our partners at the UNC/SOG Development Finance Initiative as well as the Smart Sites certification process that is also underway is to determine the site’s suitability for development – how much development and where it’s best suited to occur.  As the process unfolds, there will be ample opportunity for stakeholders and other interested parties to review the results of these analyses and share thoughts.”

Padgett said that the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society, which owns and operates the Wake Forest Historical Museum, and the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce should receive funding at the same level as last year — $4,000 and $11,000, respectively – and that Resources for Seniors receive a slight increase because of the building expansion from the $4,000 it received last year to $5,000. There is no recommended funding for the children’s parade during the Fourth of July celebration — $2,500 last year – but the Wake Forest Boys and Girls Club which received $7,500 last year should get the same this year.