City Council drops tax increase
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on June 2, 2015 1:46 PM
The Goldsboro City Council passed the city's 2015-16 budget at Monday night's meeting after making several significant changes to the original spending plan in its work session.
Two of the most significant changes are the removal of the proposed 1-cent tax increase and the addition of funding to WAGES and the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce.
WAGES will receive $15,000 in funding from the city, while the Chamber of Commerce will receive an additional $5,000 more than the organization requested, bringing its total allotment to $15,000.
With the slashing of the proposed 1-cent tax increase, which would have raised taxes from 65 to 66 cents per $100 of valuation, the city had to find the $212,000 in revenue the increase would have brought in elsewhere in the budget.
Council made the changes during its 5 p.m. work session, leaving finance director Kaye Scott to make last-minute adjustments to the budget to adapt to the council's wishes before the 7 p.m. meeting.
To make up the loss in revenue created by forgoing a tax increase, the city pulled from several budget categories.
The bulk of the money came from the removal of one-time merit bonuses for city employees, which freed up slightly more than $50,000, and a reduction in funding for the Goldsboro Municipal Golf Course and Elmwood Cemetery renovations, which freed up $120,752 and $65,000, respectively.
Councilman William Goodman said he would like to see the employee merit bonuses revisited after the first financial quarter is finished and to analyze the possibility of reinstating them if the city is doing well enough financially.
The employee one-time merit bonus is traditionally given around the holiday season late in the year.
Employees will still receive pay increases over the course of the year in the form of a one percent COLA (Cost of Living Allowance) increase for the full year, and a one and a half percent merit increase during the first six months of the year.
The city also removed $96,739 in funding for street resurfacing during the course of the next fiscal year, also freeing up those funds to aid in making up the difference of revenue lost by not increasing taxes.
Councilman Charles Williams did not support a tax increase by the city from the outset of budget discussion when they began several weeks ago.
But last night's decision to remove the tax increase came on the heels of a suggestion it be removed by Councilman Gene Aycock, after which the other council members got on board with the idea and began finding possible funding sources elsewhere in the budget.
Overall, there will be a funding increase in the budget of $634,851 more than what was in the fiscal year 2014-15 budget.
The city also updated its nepotism clause during last night's work session.
"We had a question on (the policy) from a council member a month or two or six (months) ago, I can't remember when, but one of the council members -- and probably, but I don't know the motivation behind it -- but I would assume somebody was talking to a council member about, 'Hey, if I run, your policy says my so-and-so has to resign,'" Stevens said.
He said the council member's suggestion was the impetus that brought about the change to the policy, and that he was not sure if any family member of a council member or city employee was thinking of running for the city council.
Prior to last night's meeting the city's policy read that the employment of any person into a permanent position who is immediate family of the city's mayor, mayor pro-tem, a council member, the city manager, finance director, human resources director, city clerk or city attorney is prohibited.
The revision to the policy prohibits the hiring of any immediate family member of the aforementioned positions, but removed the prohibition on hiring relatives of the city's finance director and city clerk.
City manager Scott Stevens said it was his decision to remove the city clerk and finance director positions from the policy.
"I just did that because in the authority of trying to make sure we're not creating conflicts for people, it would be set up so my police chief can't hire somebody that works for him (who's related to him)," Stevens said. "The chief's wife could work for the city, but not in the police department. My city clerk has no hiring authority at all, she has one position that works for her. If we're having a personnel issue, she may or may not be in that. She generally would not be involved in a personnel issue. My finance director -- it's the same thing. I thought if we were going to go ahead and revise the policy, why not go ahead and revise it to where it makes sense to me? If it came to hiring my family, that's going to be a conflict because ultimately they all work for me."
The revision removed the requirement that if a family member of a current employee of the city is elected to the city council that the family member would have to resign within six months of his or her family member being elected to the council.
The policy, even with updates, still states that no department heads can hire family members into positions where they would need to supervise their family members.
But according to policy, Stevens said, family members can work in other departments for the city that are not directly supervised by their immediate family members.
He said he did not feel this would create any conflicts of interest.
"Local governments, we try to discourage the hiring of anybody that could be seen as a conflict, but truthfully the board hires me," Stevens said. "From that standpoint, if you're elected to the board and somebody works in the ranks, I don't see that as a real conflict. In our form of government, (the council) hire me and then I hire the staff. What I tired to do with our policy (revision) is once you're on the board, you shouldn't be hiring your family, because that looks funny, even if it's not."