Wake passes $1.5B budget, will speak with sheriff about George Floyd protests
Wake County leaders approved a $1.47 billion budget without raising the property tax rate Monday.
County leaders also agreed at the meeting to reach out to Sheriff Gerald Baker to discuss his department’s response to protests in Raleigh over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The budget, which the commissioners approved unanimously, is $1.78 million more than County Manager David Ellis had recommended but $7.9 million less than this fiscal year’s adopted budget, according to a county news release.
The Wake County Public School System requested $29.9 million in additional funding but was only given an $11.95 million for a total of $527.9 million in the approved budget.
The school system was also requested $45 million from the county’s share of CARES Act money. About $14 million is for actual reimbursements and the remaining $30 million would help support the school system in the coming year. The county voted only to approve the reimbursement of $14 million.
The budget reflects $28.8 million less revenue, mostly in sales tax, than the county had projected before the coronavirus shutdown. The CARES Act can’t be used to replace loss revenue due to COVID-19.
“COVID-19 has dramatically changed our financial picture for the coming year,” commissioners Chair Greg Ford said in the release.
Its cuts more than 100 positions — most of them vacant — including 32 at Wake County Public Libraries.
Libraries will open one hour later and close one hour earlier, child and adult programs will be reduced, and the library will not hold its annual public book sale.
The budget also cuts part-time and temporary staffing at the Wake County Animal Center and removes two ambulances from the county’s fleet.
There is no pay increase for the county’s more than 3,800 employees.
Following the countywide property revaluation, the budget proposes a “revenue-neutral” tax rate of 60 cents per $100 of assessed property value to generate the same amount of revenue as the current tax rate of 72.02 cents per $100. The owner of a house with a tax value of $300,000 will pay $1,800 in county property tax.
The budget also raises the Fire Tax District tax rate 0.76 cents per $100 to replace equipment and create a reserve for future fire station construction. The rate increase will bring the total rate to 9.10 cents per $100.
Wake County had proposed two fee increases: a $15 fee increase for fingerprinting services and a $25 increase for a pool permit fee. Both were approved.
County to speak with Wake County sheriff
Toward the end of Monday’s meeting Commissioner Jessica Holmes acknowledged the “defund the police” movement and said she plans to contact the sheriff to see “where we can reform practices and better serve our community.”
The Raleigh police have been criticized for law enforcement’s response to protesters during the first weekend of protests over Floyd’s death, after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
The initial deployment of tear gas by another agency “created volatile circumstances for hours to come,” Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown wrote in a request last week for an outside review of the response.
Holmes and Ford emphasized the sheriff is elected and the commissioners’ relationship with him is different from a police chief, who answers to the city manager. Still, the discussion will give Baker an opportunity to show how his office deployed staff and resources in specific circumstances, Ford said.
“Today is not us closing the chapter on that conversation,” Holmes said. “It will be a continuing conversation.”
On Tuesday, spokesman Eric Curry said the Sheriff’s Office had not yet received a request from the commissioners and so had no comment.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 6:43 PM.
