Wake Forest Gazette

          Near the close of Monday evening’s work session about the 2009-2010 budget, Commissioner Chris Kaeberlein said, “It’s nice to be able to quibble over $10,000 in a $46-million budget when other towns are looking at cutting back 10 percent.”
          That $10,000 was to restore funding for the Wake Forest Boys and Girls Club as well as Kids Voting -- $7,500 and $1,600, respectively – by, it was finally decided, cutting out the $14,000 for bus shelters from the Capital Improvements Program.
          At the same time the commissioners were talking about $10,000, Finance Director Aileen Staples was saying she is “still very nervous about the current year” because, as Town Manager Mark Williams explained, the State of North Carolina could balance its budget by using monies that would normally come to the town.      
          “They haven’t come anywhere near balancing their budget,” Williams said, and may not do so until the fall. “They could decide to keep all the sales tax, with the local option (sales tax) becoming the state sales tax.”
          “This year we might have to use the fund balance,” Staples said, referring to the general fund balance (a savings account) that should hold $10 million at the end of this fiscal year. The money is used for one-time expenses such as the new town hall, which will get an infusion of $630,000.
          Commissioner Peter Thibodeau began by saying he had heard from a number of people who were bothered that the town funding for the Boys and Girls Club had been cut.
          Williams responded that he had seen the e-mails and “all three of the kids I raised went to the Boys and Girls Club.”
          Williams said he looked at all the outside agencies, asking which of them provided a “direct service benefit to the Town of Wake Forest. If they went away the Town of Wake Forest would be asked to take up that task.”
          For example, he said, if the town stopped giving money to Resources for Seniors, that nonprofit agency might stop providing programs at the Northern Wake Senior Center. Also, Williams said, if the town did not give $4,000 to the Fourth of July Committee, which had asked for $8,000 and has a much larger budget, the volunteers might quit and the town would have to take over that celebration.
          Thibodeau said he sees the club as a direct benefit to the town, and Mayor Vivian Jones noted the town did not give the club any funds until she was a commissioner (before 2001) and requested that donation.
          “I don’t think you understand,” Jones said to Thibodeau. “We own the (senior center) building. We do nothing as far as programs.” The town contracts to Resources for Seniors to run the programs, and the $3,000 donation does not begin to cover the group’s costs. If Resources for Seniors stops providing programs, “We would have to hire people, who would be town employees, or we would have to close the center.”
          Commissioner Chris Kaeberlein said he was not sure how the $110,000 annual donation to the Wake Forest Birthplace Society for the annex behind the Calvin Jones House qualifies under Williams’ definition.
          “It’s a commitment the board has already made,” Williams said. A previous board agreed to donate up to that amount each year for five years if the society shows it has raised double that from other sources.
          Jones suggested funding the club and Kids Voting with $10,000 from the birthplace money. If the town receives enough revenue, that money could be replaced. “If for some reason we have a bad year, we’re going to have to cut, and the college birthplace could be something we could cut.”
          Thibodeau suggested funding the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle, which had submitted a first-time request for $3,500. “I don’t think we should add new things,” Jones said, and Commissioner Anne Hines agreed, “Not when we’re struggling to fund what we’ve already been funding.
           Kaeberlein and Thibodeau suggested the $14,000 for the two bus stops on the loop bus route could be cut because there are only about 40 people a day who ride the bus with no information about which stops they use.
          Thibodeau then brought up the need for handicapped-accessible playground equipment. One of the speakers at the budget public hearing had graphically shown the need for that.
          (Two sidebars. Nancy Tebeau at the DRC office has the plans and background material for The All People’s Park which was designed to be accessible and usable by everyone whatever their physical capabilities. And one of the diggers at the new Taylor Street Park can be used by a handicapped child.)
          “Suppose we do find the money for the Boys and Girls Club and Kids Voting,” Commissioner Margaret Stinnett said. “Maybe it’s time we step back and ask is it really the role of government to fund these things.”
          Stinnett said she had wanted to cut all the donations by 10 percent, but when she added them all up, the total of the 10 percent cut was $23,000. That was a small enough amount, she said, that she decided it would be counter-productive to make all the agencies redo their budgets.
          Kaeberlein and others talked about reviewing the donations during the mid-year retreat, and everyone apparently agreed with Stinnett and Hines that they did not want to cut any funding this year.
          “If we don’t do bus shelters, we don’t have to cut anybody,” Commissioner Frank Drake said.
          Later, everyone agreed with Jones that the town needs to have a plan for what playground equipment is needed and where before authorizing money for the equipment.
          With that settled, the board went on to look through the budget document section by section, making no changes.
          The highlights of the 2009-2010 budget are:
          -- The property tax rate remains at 51 cents per $100 valuation.
          -- Of that 51 cents, the independent Wake Forest Fire Department receives 10 cents. That amounts to an estimated $3.3 million for the coming year. Williams thanked Fire Chief Freddy Lynn and Deputy Chief Ronnie Early for their help in containing costs. “Those two guys deserve a real pat on the back,” he said. Lynn spoke up from the back of the room to say the new fire station on Forestville Road is on schedule and under budget by $8,000 and slated to open July 1.
          -- The estimated tax base is $3.5 billion, with $45 million of that in Franklin County in the Richland Hills subdivision. Staples expects to receive $17 million from the property tax.
          -- There will be no electric rate increase, and the town has seen a 4.5 percent growth in use because of the large commercial customers such as Kohl’s that came on line this current year.
          -- There is $4 million slated for capital improvements, some of them with an eye toward future federal economic stimulus money. The $4 million includes         engineering and other design work for street resurfacing and maintenance, surfacing unpaved roads, and greenways. The town has just been notified it has been approved for $350,000 in stimulus funds for the Dunn Creek Greenway.