ASHEVILLE — The City of Asheville plans to balance its proposed budget for fiscal 2025-26 mainly with an increase in property taxes of 3.21 to 3.27 cents per $100 valuation, three city officials told the Asheville-based, pro-business Council of Independence Owners during a May 2 early-morning breakfast meeting at UNC Asheville’s Sherrill Center.

 About 40 people attended the budget presentation — touting what was termed $5 million in cost-saving strategies” for the next fiscal year — that featured Mayor Esther Manheimer, Vice Mayor Antanette Moseley and Councilwoman Maggie Ullman.

The mayor presented the budget plan in 15 minutes, after which Moseley and Ullman assisted her in fielding questions from CIBO members and their guests for more than 30 minutes.

CIBO Past President John Carroll, who served as the meeting moderator, recognized elected officials and guests in attendance, who, besides Manheimer, Mosley and Ullman, included Buncombe County Commissioner Terri Wells and soon-to-retire Asheville City Manager Debra Campbell.

As per its tradition, CIBO also featured a prayer and recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to open the meeting — and, for the pledge, Manheimer, Mosley and Ullman joined the meeting attendees in standing and reciting the pledge, in stark contrast to Asheville Councilwoman Kim Roney — a major critic of the United States — who did neither during her last CIBO appearance.

When Carroll introduced Manheimer, noting that the she has served as Asheville’s mayor since 2013, she received politc applause from the meeting attendees.

In her presentation, Manheimer began by noting, “This is a little bit of deep dive into the budget... Let’s talk first about the current/last budget... Before (Tropical Storm) Helene, we had the lowest unemployment rate in North Carolina in Buncombe County (which includes Asheville)... It (Buncombe joblessness) jumped after Helene — and has stayed higher than usual...”

After many negative economic numbers have been tallied since the storm wreakd its wrath on the area on Sept. 27, “We’re starting to see some recovery in the occupancy tax,” the mayor said.

She added that council has arrived at its budget proposal after “many work sessions, (some) with just council, (some) with constituents, (some) with surveys” and some using other methods to seek innovative ideas.

Following Helene, “We (the city) are seeing some loss on property tax collections — and that has affected collections... to some extent... and that’s hurting the city somewhat...”

The overall estimate for next year includes “$4.1 million in unavoidable increases, mostly driven by health care costs and state-mandated retirement increases.” 

Also, she noted, “In North Carolina, there’s just a structural imbalance of natural revenue growth and the cost of delivering services.”

As for the balanced budget proposal, the mayor said, “here’s how we did it,” as she noted the following:

• “We’ve cut in half our training and travel costs

• “We came up with $5 million in cuts

• “For last year, we used some of our fund balance to balance the budget. I don’t like using the fund balance for recurring expenses, as I feel like you’re just kicking the can down the road. But it’s a balancing act...”

Manheimer then emphasized, “Our policy is to keep our fund balance at 15 percent.”

She noted that the budget plan includes proposed compensation adjustments as follows:

• “A 3 percent hybrid salary increase above median and $1,740 flat amount for those below the median.

• “Employees on the police pay plan would receive compensation adjustments and move to a career ladder designed to improve recruitment and retention.

• “Employees on the fire (department) pay plan would received 3 percent…. It’s sort of a trend for fire departments.”

The big question for city officials, Manheimer, stressed, was: “How to close the gap?”

To that end, the mayor said that “a property tax rate increase is being looked at — 3.21 (cents) to 3.27 cents” per $100 valuation.

She quickly added, “When we first started looking at everything, it looked like 6 cents” per $100 valuation would be needed to balance the budget, but city officials were able to cut that number nearly in half.

If the property tax proposal is approved in the new budget, Manheimer said the owner of a property assessed at $350,000 would see an $9.36 to $9.54 monthly increase — translatiing into a $113 to $114 annual jump.