Roanoke Rapids City Council will go into its June 4 budget public hearing with a proposed $19,852,046 financial plan for the upcoming fiscal year that includes a 64.1 cents per $100 value tax rate.

The decision Tuesday to go with the 64.1 cents tax rate came on a motion from Councilwoman Sandra Bryant and a second from Warren Keith Bell. With Councilman Wayne Smith absent, councilmen Rex Stainback and Curtis Strickland also backed the plan.

The budget public hearing will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Lloyd Andrews City Meeting Hall on Jackson Street.

The 64.1 cents per $100 tax rate is two cents less than the current tax rate of 66 cents per $100 but comes on the heels of a property revaluation in which property values across the county increased.

Bryant’s motion to move forward with the budget public hearing and the new tax rate came after City Manager Kelly Traynham went over highlights of the proposed budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

(The full version of Traynham's budget message can downloaded at this link)

“Based on the four years I have been on the council, it’s become very obvious to me that there have been a lot of needs that we have tended to neglect or not address in the past,” Bryant said before making her motion. “No one likes to feel like they are raising taxes, but there also comes a time when we have to address and fix this infrastructure if we’re ever going to be the city that we want, that’s going to attract people and maintain that. And you can’t do that without maintaining your employees. The employees are the greatest asset.”

She said she understands that “if a person wants to come to work they want to have decent equipment to work with. I feel like when I came on we addressed implementing this computer system.”

She was referring to the proposed budget’s appropriation that will allow the city to implement the cloud-based OpenGov budgeting and planning software system that pairs with the OpenGov platform the planning and development has been using and the NeoGov platform human resources will be implementing in the fall. “I remember receiving a call from someone from out of town that was interested in putting in a proposal for a hotel and she wasn’t going to be able to get it into us by 5 o’clock because we didn’t have a system where people could communicate and submit that type of information after hours. I think we’ve made the initial investment. We’ve heard from different department heads how they would benefit and be more efficient and hopefully have more time to devote to making the city better in the areas of which they are maintaining.”

Before Bryant made her motion, Mayor Emery Doughtie weighed in on the proposed budget. 

He first mentioned a line in the message of the city having a rich history and a diverse culture and that the city is evolving, growing and advancing. “In this same time period we received information that (in) the latest census we had lost 200 or 300 more people. We all know that has been a trend for quite a few years.”

From the council’s last meeting the mayor said discussions showed “we haven’t generated any new revenue other than what we have on the backs of the taxpayers. I equated that to other businesses that increase their pricing to try to keep their revenue neutral or increasing. Eventually, it turns out not to be real good.”

As far as sales taxes, Doughtie said flat projections reflect that people don’t have as much disposable income. “During the pandemic people were getting money to try to help them get through. That had a big effect on the sales tax revenue being up but now most of that has gone away so as you say people don’t have as much disposable income. We all know everything has gone up more than they say it’s gone up.”

Referring to talks in the state about casino legislation, the mayor said that “would be a windfall for us. If the people at the theater would make that come to reality I think it would create more sales tax, more property tax. That would definitely have a big effect on us.”

He said he is also concerned about paving. “We still have a lot of places in town that are in desperate need of attention as far as being able to get around with reasonable roads to ride on.”

Then there is the issue of demolition. “We all know there’s a lot of properties in town. We’ve heard from citizens that gave their opinion about not wanting us to take down other people’s property and I kind of have that same feeling too. But if it’s a health hazard or a fire hazard or just an eyesore, that is the kind of thing that could keep people from moving to our community. Maybe the legislature will see at some point how they might give us a little more leverage to extract some money from the people that own those properties instead of continuing on the way it is right now.”

Doughtie then went on to request a motion from the council on setting the public hearing, saying, “That I would just ask the people on this council to think about how you are going to be the ones that are charged with this budget that we set. It’s not going to be the city manager. It’s not going to be department heads. It’s going to be you and me. We’re going to be the ones that get the praise of the criticism or whatever it is. It’s going to be on us. I know the city manager is charged with bringing a budget to us but there’s nothing that says we have to accept it exactly as it is. You can make changes.”

Asked about his decision to cast the second to Bryant’s motion, Bell said, “I think the budget is a good budget. I think it’s very close to what it was last year. Even though we had the revaluation we always try to make sure that any type of stress placed upon the public is very little because we want them to still be able to pay their bills.”

Traynham said the vote “shows that our council has been listening and they’ve been hearing the needs. I think their interest in why we haven’t got things done is because of the budget. We haven’t been able to do a lot of things. We need to maintain our facilities. The broken window applies to us too.”

She said many of the city’s facilities have aged out. “If you go buy an old house it’s going to cost you a lot more money to change out fixtures and things like that than it would to probably to get a new house. We’re trying to be fiscally responsible and this time next year we’ll see what our needs are and evaluate from there.”