After presenting her budget message to commissioners this morning, Halifax County Manager Dia Denton said the next step in putting the county’s upcoming fiscal year budget into action will be a public hearing on June 3 followed by the anticipated adoption of the financial plan on June 17.

Both these meetings will be held at 9:30 a.m. in the board of commissioners at the Historic Courthouse at King Street in Halifax.

Denton told the board there were no substantial changes in the proposed $58,074,082 budget from what she presented during a budget work session in April and the board’s May 6 meeting.

“I really want to thank the county manager, deputy county manager and finance director for a job well done,” board Chair Vernon Bryant said following Denton’s presentation. 

With a fund balance of $57,776,280 — 75.58 percent — Bryant told the board, “We’ve got to use that fiscal conservative approach in whatever we do. It behooves us as county commissioners and staff. We’ve got to be good stewards over taxpayer dollars any way we look at it. We’ve got a healthy fund balance … but that doesn’t mean we’re going to spend every dime. We’re going to continue to be conservative or at least that’s going to be my vote as long as I’m still a county commissioner.”

(As required by law, the budget will be available for public inspection in the clerk to the board's office and in all five county public libraries for the required 10 days. The proposed budget will also be available on the County's website atwww.halifaxnc.com)

Budget message

Denton said in her budget message that a majority of the fund balance is not available for general use, meaning that the available cash on hand amount is $29,920,196 — 45.23 percent — to address any additional non-recurring needs in the budget. “Again, I compliment staff, with direction from the Halifax County Board of Commissioners, for creating the environment to allow us to have this healthy unassigned fund balance, which also helps us be prepared for emergencies and disasters,” Denton said. “Unlike the federal government, we are required to balance our budget and maintain additional funds to cover any major unexpected events.”

Denton noted, however, that, “Halifax County has always had challenges in being able to provide services to our citizens while keeping the property tax rate low. Compared to other rural North Carolina counties, we continue to have one of the lowest property tax rates.”

With the latest reappraisal of real property effective January 1, Halifax County operates on a four-year cycle to assign new tax values to all land and buildings based on the current market. “While there are variations throughout the county of both increased and decreased property values, we experienced an average growth in value of 24.75 percent,” Denton said. “Local governments are required to publish revenue-neutral tax rates following reappraisals. As a result of the growth experienced with this reappraisal, Halifax County's revenue neutral tax rate is $0.67 per $100 valuation, compared to the current fiscal year tax rate of $0.76 per $100 valuation.”

The county has experienced some growth in sales taxes, Denton said. “Even with gas prices and inflation remaining high, I am happy to report that our sales tax revenues have remained strong, even increasing by 4 percent from last year, which is trending along with the current inflation rate.”

Based on the economic challenges the county continues to face, she said, “I am impressed that we are able to maintain a good collection rate at an impressive 97.5 percent. With our conservative projections and healthy fund balance, I am confident we will have the ability to absorb any potential shortfalls in the budget should the economy take a severe downturn.”

Denton said the county continues to have positive movement in economic development efforts. She said the construction of the new Fairfield by Marriott Hotel off Interstate 95 at Exit 173 is expected to spur additional development in this area with much potential. 

Allocations

The budget allocates $3,944,228 from the fund balance to fund the next fiscal year's approved capital for county departments. 

An additional $644,000 of Fund Balance will cover the costs of additional one-time bonuses to full-time and eligible part-time employees. 

The commissioners approved awarding full-time employees $1,000 bonuses and $500 bonuses to eligible part-time employees, payable in July. 

School funding

As required by the state of North Carolina, all counties with multiple graded school districts are required to support each district equally as to local current expense funding based on each district's average daily membership. 

Denton, in response to a question from Commissioner Carolyn Johnson, said the state has still not provided the ADM numbers. “We’ll continue to check it on a daily basis.”

Denton said when the ADM numbers are received it won’t change what the county contributes to the three school districts — Halifax, Roanoke Rapids and Weldon. “When we do get those figures we will compare them with what we ran this year with the current ADM and we will bring that to you to see if you would like to make any changes.”

The county provides local funding to each graded school district based on ADM.

Membership allotments that are provided by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and the amount allocated will increase from $792.54 per pupil to $799.37 per pupil.

This year's budget provides additional capital funding for the county’s public schools and community college totaling $784,000. 

Denton said the proposed budget will continue to address pressing capital needs by funding, among other things, debt service payments for Enfield-Inborden School, Manning Elementary School and the Social Services building.

Features

Features of the budget proposal for Halifax County as follows:

Continues county services at efficient and effective levels.

Is based on an estimated property tax base of $4,542,124,542 and a tax collection rate of 97.5 percent. 

The tax rate of 70 cents per $100 value will be adequate to support the FY 2024-2025 budget.

This budget absorbs a 17 percent increase in property and liability insurance coverage.

To maintain a healthy workforce, this budget continues to provide a competitive benefits

package, which includes 100 percent paid premiums for health coverage for each full-time employee who participates in the county's wellness program.

This budget maintains the longevity pay program which Denton said is a vital employee retention tool to reward long-term full-time employees.

This budget funds the pay-for-performance evaluation plan, a retention tool.

This budget continues a hiring freeze, previous staff reductions and travel restrictions, which will remain in effect throughout this budget year.

This budget includes funds to support both economic development and contingency operations.

This budget continues to require employees to use county vehicles, when available, for

travel; this policy amounts to a savings of over 60 percent in travel costs versus paying mileage for use of personal vehicles.

This budget funds needed capital outlay for county departments.

This budget provides funding to a Community Grants program in the amount of $50,000. 

Salary study

The budget implements a comprehensive salary study to increase the salaries of county staff to become more competitive with neighboring counties.

“In fall 2022, Halifax County selected Piedmont Triad Regional Council to conduct a comprehensive pay study of employee salaries,” Denton said.

As a result every position in Halifax County was recommended to increase. “Due to wide variations in some positions, some salaries were proposed to increase more than others,” she said. “Positions projected to increase the most were, not surprisingly, animal control officers and custodians. With some additional work internally, we were able to make some adjustments to bring the minimum wage for a full-time position to $15 per hour, equating to a salary of $30,000 per year.”

Denton after the presentation praised the board for pay study. “I just want to mention one more time how monumental it is that you all have allowed us to move forward with this pay study implementation. This is truly, truly groundbreaking for this county.”

Bryant credited Johnson for pushing the plan forward. “Carolyn Johnson had a lot to do with this,” he said. “Going forward when we talk about this plan we’ll call it the Johnson plan. All you commissioners wanted to do it but she kind of led the charge on that one.”