City Manager Payne proposes $268 million FY 2020-21 budget for Concord
CONCORD, N.C. (WBTV) - From the City of Concord: City Manager Lloyd Payne provided his fiscal year 2020-21 (FY21) budget recommendation to the Concord Mayor and City Council on Friday, May 29. The City-wide budget totals $268,898,365 for all funds, including utilities and special revenue funds.
The total represents an overall budget increase of 4 percent over the fiscal year 2019-20 adopted budget.
The recommended General Fund budget, where the major funding sources are property taxes and sales tax receipts, is $102,168,959. The property tax rate is recommended to stay at 48 cents per 100 dollars of valuation. The City Manager stated that a revenue-neutral FY21 tax rate would be 41.65 cents, based on an overall 18 percent increase in Concord’s assessed property values determined during the 2020 Cabarrus County revaluation process.
New for FY2020-21, the recommendation includes designating the equivalent of 2.5 cents of the tax rate towards City Council's goal of creating dedicated funding for Parks & Recreation and Affordable Housing (1 cent for each), and increasing the supplemental funding for State transportation projects by 0.5 cents to a total of 2.5 cents. Each penny of the City's tax rate generates approximately $1.35 million. The City Manager recommends funding half of these amounts initially, and then funding the remaining half through either improved General Fund revenues or appropriating fund balance (savings).
"Per Council’s direction, the focus of this budget is maintaining services and continuing to fund the essential projects necessary to maintain and improve the quality of life in a growing community," wrote Payne. "To do this and to continue to make basic capital purchases, I am recommending the use of $10,809,635 from the City’s General Capital Reserve Funds to pay for one-time expenses and projects."
The FY21 budget recommendation provides thoughtful service and infrastructure expansions where required to meet the demands of growth. The recommendation includes continues investments in coworkers to ensure the recruitment and retention of talent to deliver community services.
The City Council held a budget workshop at a special meeting on April 7, where Payne presented an overview of his recommendation and solicited feedback from the Mayor and Council. The Council will discuss the budget and hold a public hearing at the June 9 work session conducted online. Details on joining the meeting and providing public comments will be available at concordnc.gov/councilagenda.
Interested individuals can view the City Manager’s recommended budget on concordnc.gov and also in print at the City Clerk’s office.
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