What Orange County commissioner candidates would do about taxes, budget gap
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- March races will influence handling of a $21M estimated budget gap.
- Candidates propose spending cuts, tax relief, growth and revenue ideas.
- Debate focuses on homeowner relief and boosting commercial tax base.
The decisions that Orange County voters make at the polls in March will directly affect their wallets and could even force some to consider whether to keep living here.
The county is at a crossroads, faced with a $21 million budget gap next year, according to early estimates, as the cost of services, programs and personnel climb. Property taxes are already too high for some, prompting the commissioners to spend more on tax relief.
Six Democrats and two Republicans are running for Board of Commissioner seats in District 1, District 2 and the at-large district.
The Democratic winners in the District 2 and at-large races will face Republican challengers in the Nov. 3 general election. There is no Republican running in District 1, so whoever wins the Democratic primary will become that district’s next county commissioner.
The News & Observer asked the candidates about the county’s budget and the property tax rate increase they would support. Find more information about Orange County’s primary here, and full election coverage here.
District 1
Jamezetta Bedford: The commissioners have asked County Manager Travis Myren for a list of services that could be cut, Bedford said, including programs like social services, senior centers, libraries, parks and recreation, and office supplies and software. County employees might get small raises, and more positions could be cut or frozen, she said.
The county is locked into at least a 2- to 3-cent tax-rate increase for Durham Tech and local school construction, she said, but could offset it with more money for the Longtime Homeowners Tax Assistance program.
“We don’t have a lot of waste, and even if we did, in some positions, like the health department, you can’t just not replace a nurse. That work has to happen every day. … If interest rates come down, then when we do our spring borrowing, we would leverage those dollars.”
Maria Palmer: The county needs “to be a lot more creative,” she said, and every department could cut 5% of its budget, some with input from those being served.
The county also needs more businesses and developments that pay taxes, she said, “because servicing those dense developments costs us less … whereas single‑family homes, it’s the opposite.”
Reusing any Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools that close as child-care centers could bring in money, provide jobs and college credit for high school students, and help subsidize child care for teachers.
“You’re bringing in money. People pay thousands of dollars for child care. … There are operators who are making a good living running child-care centers, paying rent. What I’m talking about is mixed use with revenue from other sources, [and] if you get an operator who can repair a roof instead of the county repairing it, that is one way it helps the county.”
District 2
Earl McKee: McKee wants a 2% across-the-board spending cut, building-project delays, and to use the county’s fund balance to address the budget shortfall this year.
The county’s property-tax increases to meet rising costs are pushing people out, he said, especially low-income and older residents. He has proposed reducing property taxes for homeowners at age 65, if they have lived there for 20 years and earn less than half of the area median income, or roughly $61,000.
The program would operate similar to the Homestead Exemption for elderly and disabled homeowners, but under McKee’s plan, the county would recoup the last three years of property taxes at the current rate if it is sold or passed on to the resident’s heirs.
McKee has been working with the Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition to change how older homes are being assessed by revaluation every four years. He doesn’t support a tax-rate increase this year, instead preferring to cut expenses and delay projects.
He also regrets last year’s vote to add 1.5 cents to the tax rate, he said. It added $75 to the county tax bill for a $500,000 home.
“My fear is, if we’re not very careful on these taxes, we’re going to turn Orange County old, wealthy and white,” he said.
Beth Bronson: The county budget is “the biggest bear,” she said, and the commissioners must straddle community needs, the tax office, and “death by a thousand cuts” as the county’s budget grows to cover state cuts in education funding.
Bronson said she would turn to staff for expertise and look first for savings in administration, noting “everything seems necessary” when it comes to services. The commissioners also have to plan for an aging population, and how that affects schools and services, she said.
The county and towns could work more closely to plan for growth and ways to share resources, she said, and there might also be ways to change how residents and businesses are taxed.
“We cannot afford to continue putting property-tax pressure on people who have been here for decades, who want to move here to raise their kids,” she said. “It’s depended on that for too long, and because there hasn’t been a balanced commercialization.”
Louis Capitanio: The Republican candidate has not responded to The News & Observer’s requests for information.
At-large District
Adam Beeman: Beeman supports digging through county maintenance and repair contracts for savings, increasing commercial revenue, and taxing short-term rentals more like a business.
“If you don’t do any more development, you keep this rural, beautiful county, and we don’t get any more [commercial investment] going, the bills are still going to add up,” he said.
He advocated for a line-by-line look at the budget, noting several county contracts that he reviewed. One for $30,000 paid an engineering firm to recommend generators, he said, and another paid $1,500 to have an electrician open the electrical panels for the engineer.
County staff could have done that work, said Beeman, an electrician by trade.
He was hesitant to suggest a maximum property-tax rate, saying the county needs to figure out first why an older home can be valued higher than a new home, and ease the burden on older and low-income homeowners.
Karen Stegman: The county needs to prioritize economic growth and be aggressive about easing the tax burden on homeowners and renters, Stegman said.
Stegman, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member, voted against the town’s budget last year, because “it raised taxes too much,” she said. She hopes the county doesn’t have to cut services to avoid more tax rate increases.
“Our economic-development strategy for the county is really dated,” Stegman said. “I think there have been a lot of missed opportunities there, and we’ve got to get really serious about building our commercial tax base, which also provides jobs, and to take that pressure off of residential property taxes.”
The county also should collaborate more with the towns, and the school districts could offer shared special needs, language and career and technical education programs, she said.
“That’s not a magic bullet, by any means. But I think there’s a lot of duplication,” she said.
Jeffrey Hoagland: The other Republican candidate, Hoagland said the county needs to fix its “spending problems” before raising taxes. It also needs to stop turning away economic development projects that could generate more revenue, such as the Walmart on Chapel Hill’s southern border or the Buc-ee’s plan pulled in 2021, he said.
Hoagland proposed tying the tax value of a home to the level it was when the owner moved in.
“I wouldn’t propose increasing the tax rate at all, because you raise money, you just expect more, and just create the potential cycle of just spending and spending and not actually fixing problems,” he said.
Hoagland also opposes subsidies, such as a guaranteed basic income, which he said leads to higher home prices and taxes. Orange County subsidizes some affordable housing projects, but does not have a basic income program.
