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HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.054.93011_0262 (2)Transit System (CATS) that indicated the Charlotte City Council on May 10, 2004, had authorized CATS to contract with an agency for engineering/environmental review services for the North Corridor Community Rail Line and the Charlotte Multimodal Station. Mashburn said the city also had been authorized to enter into an Interlocal Agreement with Mooresville and Iredell County regarding the sharing of costs for the first phase of the work. He said a formal agreement had not been received, but he wanted to give advance notice that one would be presented in the future. Mr. Mashburn then shared his FY 2004-2005 Iredell County Budget Message as follows: Budget Message Proposed FY 2004-2005 Budget The FY 2004-2005 proposed budget is submitted in accordance with NC state statutes and county policy. Budget Highlights Revenues: In FY 1003-2004, we saw a 10% increase in our property tax collections, however, for FY 2004-2005, only a 2.5% increase is projected. This is the lowest annual increase in the property base since I came here in 1988. When you look around and see what construction is going on, it is hard to accept this limited growth. What has happened? It appears that the biggest single cause to this drastic reduction in our growth has been the loss of personal property, mainly the loss of tax base in some of our major businesses and industries. Because of the economy and other factors, we are seeing large amounts of equipment leaving the county, much of it going to other states where a company may be consolidating operations, or downsizing the operations to more closely match demand, or to move offshore to take advantage of lower production costs. Regardless of the reason, the result is the same. We have lost tax base resulting in a loss of revenue. Not only did we see a reduction in our property tax growth, but sales tax projections are not much better. Utilizing the most recent collection reports, and averaging out the past few months, it is projected that collections of the one cent sales tax will not increase more than 5% With the cost of living (CPI) increasing by 2.3916, the real growth is actually only 2.7916. Couple this with the low rate of growth in our property taxes, it is easy to see why this can be easily termed a year of no growth, and the proposed budget will reflect this bleak projection. Expenditures: Bleak as the revenue picture may be, the expenditure picture reflects the harsh reality of what happens when two powerful forces collide. Revenue is down, but demand for services is up. To see evidence of this, all you have to do is to visit any of the county's facilities on any given day. You will find more people sitting in the waiting rooms and filling the aices in Social Services and Health. The jail is not overcrowded just on weekends, but on every night of the week. More courtrooms have been built to deal with the criminals in our community, but we also have to provide more and more space just so our citizens can settle their differences with each other. Also, look at the Animal Control reports and see how many tax dollars have to be spent because of the irresponsibility of some pet owners. Is it right that we should have to spend over $800, 000 just to address the irresponsibility of a few? Actually, $800,000 is not enough, but for this year, it will have to do. The proposed budget recommends an overall increase in expenditures of 4.14%, but revenues are only projected to increase 2.2%. The commissioners have earlier set a goal of maintaining a fund balance of at least II Ya This year the closest we can come to that will be 10.1%, and this is only because I am proposing to use one-time revenues, instead of fund balance, to balance the proposed budget. Over $1,867,000 will be taken from the Solid Waste Retained Earnings. When the Solid Waste department was set up as an enterprise fund in 1992, over $1,867,000 in assets was transferred from the General Fund to the new Solid Waste Enterprise Fund. The General Fund never received any payment for those assets. The Solid Waste Fund is in good enough shape financially and it can now repay the General Fund for those assets. This is enough to balance the proposed budget and leave us a fund balance of $11,667,298, or 10.2% of the General Fund budget.