While many of the town governments in Orange County are weighing just how much to raise residents’ taxes in order to afford their upcoming budgets, the Town of Pittsboro across the Chatham County line is likely to keep its tax rate flat for a fourth consecutive year.
The Pittsboro Board of Commissioners held a public hearing on the proposed town budget for the upcoming fiscal year on Monday evening. When no residents spoke, Pittsboro Town Manager Johnathan Franklin and Finance Director Heather Meacham quickly transitioned to a brief presentation and recap of the proposal – which is an operational budget of just more than $14 million.
Under the plan, Pittsboro would maintain its town property tax rate of 44 cents per $100 of value, keeping it in line with the last three years of its rate despite the adjusted revenue-neutral rate from this year’s revaluation cycle being closer to 35 cents. Even while keeping that tax rate flat – as the local government has only raised it once in the last decade – the town is still set to bring in significant tax revenue, as how much money that rate brings in has more than tripled since 2016 based on the growth of Pittsboro’s population and property values.
Many of the changes made by the finance director include common, expected adjustments for a town experiencing such growth. Pittsboro employees would receive a 5.2% pay raise to keep up with the local cost of living and market rates – even as the prices for the town’s healthcare plans and operating costs are increasing. The local government would seek a $785,000 loan to help cover some extra expenses, like new town vehicles and equipment for its police officers, as well as dipping into the government’s general fund balance for $1.19 million.
Payroll makes up nearly 47% of operating expenses in this budget, Meacham added, and the plan makes adjustments to continue adding some key employees.
“The proposed budget,” she said, “includes adding two police officer positions, a public works maintenance position and an IT Manager — all which are scheduled to start in January 2026. And then we are also expanding the Downtown Events and Admin Coordinator position from a part-time position to a full-time position.”
Some of the Pittsboro commissioners asked how much removing $1.19 million from the fund balance would affect the town’s long-term planning or savings. Franklin responded by saying the town would likely be able to add that amount – or more – back to its balance by the end of next fiscal year, barring any “major incident” that would require using the reserves.
Franklin added that while the town paid off all of its debt in the ongoing fiscal year, which is good for credit, part of the plan for this proposal is to build some back. He described this as an opportunity to prime the local government to take more debt out for significant upcoming development projects.
“In four more years when we have another revaluation,” said the town manager, “the value gained in the penny will helps us pay the debt service for a new town hall, police station expansion, other needs, parks and greenways…all the stuff the community wants to see. You should be able to do that with ease in another four years, [that] is what I’m hoping and projecting.”
With the Board of Commissioners having held a workshop to discuss the budget in March, there was little objection shared on Monday to the proposal. But one commissioner who missed that meeting, John Bonitz, asked Meacham whether the town could find a “sweet spot” within the 9.5-cent gap between the proposed tax rate and the lower revenue-neutral rate. He cited residents’ concerns of dealing with a significant increase in property value, and said Pittsboro was in a better position than other municipalities to potentially offer relief while still maintaining services.
The finance director noted, though, she had already shaved roughly $3 million off requests from different town departments in order to limit the burden on taxpayers. If the town’s tax rate was dropped, Meacham said it would lead to significant challenges for those departments to effectively do their jobs and keep up with service demands.
“I mean, we’ve limited positions…we’ve put the [new] positions that start in January at half the [fiscal] year to try to save as much as possible,” she said. “Currently, we’re using fund balance to cover some of our operating expenses – so if we were to reduce the tax rate further, you would either end up pulling more from fund balance of we’d have to cut [expenditures] even more. And the [department] budgets are pretty slim.”
“We messed around with this a lot and it’s why we proposed what we did,” Franklin added later. “We’ve got to keep adding people incrementally or else we’re going to find ourselves underwater and not able to catch up [to needs].”
Despite the formal step of no more public comment at board meetings, Pittsboro residents are still able and encouraged to share feedback with the town staff and commissioners. The Board of Commissioners is positioned to adopt Pittsboro’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget during its meeting on Monday, June 9. The full proposal can be read on the town government’s website while Monday’s meeting can be watched on the town’s YouTube channel.
Featured photo via the Town of Pittsboro.
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