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An
increase of $265 million in Wake
Forest’s estimated tax base means that
Town Manager Mark Williams can propose a
budget for fiscal 2006-2007 that holds
the tax rate steady at 54 cents while
adding 12 full-time positions, paying
employees a 3.5 percent cost of living
adjustment and budgeting $3.7 million
for capital improvements.
The town’s tax base
increased from $1,489,337,865 this year
to an estimated $1,753,979,730 for the
coming year. Despite the increase,
Williams said it had not been an easy
budget to assemble and he and the staff
had to make a lot of hard choices.
Williams presented his
suggested budget Tuesday night during
the town board’s monthly work session.
A public hearing about the
proposed budget will be held Tuesday,
May 16, at the beginning of the 7 p.m.
regular town board meeting. During the
meeting, the commissioners will set a
series of work sessions before final
approval, which must be in June. All
those meetings are open to the public.
Williams received 17
requests for funding from outside
agencies. “We surpassed a record in the
number of requests. Some of the groups
were ones I never heard of before.”
The request from the
independent Wake Forest Fire Department
is standard. The department, which
receives money from both the town and
Wake County, will be paid 10 cents of
the 54-cent tax rate, or $1.7 million.
The amount is adjusted at the end of
each fiscal year to reflect the actual
property valuation.
The next biggest request
came from the Wake Forest College
Birthplace Society, which asked for
$550,000 over three years to build the
planned annex at the Birthplace museum
on North Main Street. The society also
asked that the streets to the north and
south of the property, Walnut and
Juniper, be improved and paved from
North Main to the railroad right-of-way.
Williams did not recommend funding the
request.
Neither did he recommend
funding the Wake Forest Cultural Arts
Association’s request for $7,392 for a
part-time director.
Williams also recommended
against funding the $7,500 requested by
the Boys and Girls Club of Wake Forest,
the $1,000 requested by the Center for
Volunteer CareGiving and the $1,400
requested by the Child Care Services
Association.
He gave approval to:
- $2,500 for Resources for
Seniors
- $15,000 to Southlight for
youth-oriented substance abuse programs
- $32,000 to the Wake Forest
Chamber of Commerce for its economic
development program. The town gave
$42,000 in 2004-2005 and $36,000 this
year.
- $3,000 to the Fourth of
July Committee
- $87,650 to the Downtown
Revitalization Corporation for the
streetscape project on South White
Street
- $13,359 to the DRC for the
signs that will help people find the
downtown area
- $5,000 to the DRC to give
a boost to the façade improvement
project.
- $1,000 to Kids Voting
- $3,000 to Wake County’s
transportation program, TRACS
- $14,605 to the United Arts
Council which, with the town’s parks and
recreation department, provides a
variety of programs in town.
Williams proposes adding
five new police officers and their
equipment, a three-man powerline crew
dedicated to powerline maintenance, a
computer analyst, a code enforcement
officer who will inspect homes to make
sure they meet minimum requirements, a
GIS analyst in the planning department
and an office assistant in parks and
recreation. He is also asking that the
part-time parking enforcement officer be
upgraded to full-time. The position
“generates enough revenue to pay for
itself,” Williams said.
The town will use about
$600,000 from capital reserves to help
pay for the $3.7 million in capital
funding for new financial software
($400,000), three new hybrid trucks,
nine police vehicles ($292,500),
sidewalk construction ($100,000),
bathrooms in the Community House
($100,000) and the new town hall
($250,000).
On the list also is $189,000
to expand the Wake Forest Cemetery by
the purchase of three properties,
including the house just to the north of
present cemetery boundary. The purchases
would add 1.4 acres to the cemetery
size.
Early in the work session,
two women applied for one open seat on
the Cemetery Advisory Board: Theresa
Watkins and Elizabeth Johnson.
The town used $2 million of
its fund balance (savings account) this
year to purchase 80 acres for park land
next to the future Heritage High School
($1,122,144), land and houses next to
the planning department on Brooks Street
for expansion of that department
($257,093), and the new brown recycling
and garbage roll-out carts ($596,436).
“That’s why you have a fund balance,”
Williams said.
A copy of the budget is
available to the public at town hall.
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