A look at 2023-24 budgets for the Triad

by Gale Melcher and Sayaka Matsuoka

It’s July, which means it is budget season for municipal governments. In the past couple of weeks, both Guilford County and Forsyth County have passed their proposed budgets for the 2023-24 fiscal year which will begin on July 1. Greensboro and Winston-Salem have also filed their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. One significant change in this year’s budgets includes payouts to local municipalities from the recent national opioid settlement Here are some takeaways from each of the municipalities. Find the full budgets online.

Guilford County

• The General Fund Appropriation for 2023-24 is $840.2 million, which is a $57 million increase from last year

• The general property tax will remain the same at 73.05 cents per $100 of property valuation

• The budget allocates $333.9 million for Education (the largest segment of the budget) – an increase of $6.9 million over the total allocation in FY 2022-23. $262 million of that will go towards Guilford County Schools. $15.4 million will go towards raises for classified employees at Guilford County Schools. Another million will fund 10 new school nurse positions in the district.

• The second largest section of the budget is allocated towards the “Successful People” designation which includes fundings for behavioral health, and the county’s Health & Human Services department which will have a budget of $143.6 million. This includes funding to hire 10 school nurses to increase the total number of school nurses in the county to 66 or 1 nurse for every 1.8 schools. The budget also includes fundings for a new mobile health clinic program. Additionally, the department aims to hire four social workers to make up a new community team that will care for people in non-emergency situations.

• The total funds allocated for law enforcement (the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office) will total $86.8 million, which marks an 8 percent increase compared to the 2022-23 year.

Greensboro

The adopted budget will be published at www.greensboro-nc.gov/budget in July.

• The General Fund Appropriation for 2023-24 is $403.9 million which is a $37 million increase from last year

• The minimum wage for city workers is increasing to $18 per hour and police officers will now be paid a starting salary of $55,000 beginning in September

• To help afford spending increases, the budget came with a property tax at a rate of 67.25 cents per $100 property valuation — four cents higher than the previous year. The tax rate is allocated as follows: 62.75 cents to the general fund, 3.5 cents to the transit fund, and 1 cent to the housing partnership fund.

• Water and sewer fees will increase. The proposed budget included a “water rate increase of 10.25 percent and a wastewater increase of 7.25 percent, or an 8.5 percent increase on average for inside and outside customers.”

• The police department’s budget hit $99.1 million, according to the city’s Assistant Budget Director Tiffany Jones. The previous year it was $91.2 million. This year, the city’s fire department has a budget of $71.2 million. The increase in the police budget includes $40,000 for the department’s Flock camera program. As of the 2022-23 fiscal year, funding has also been allocated towards the newly created Office of Community Safety — under public safety. This coming year, changes will be made to budget for one Violence Prevention Coordinator in the City Manager division; the transfer of one Behavioral Health Crisis Team Lead and seven Behavioral Crisis Counselors from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion division; and the addition of one LEADS Case Coordinator; and the addition of one Community Outreach Coordinator.

• Greensboro Transit Agency has a budget of $31.5 million. A dedicated property tax rate of 3.5 cents goes toward providing transit services to residents. Also, the start time for all weekday fixed route services will change from 5:15 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. beginning July 3.

• Housing and Neighborhood Development totals $2.44 million

• Homelessness Prevention: $539,075. This budget allocates funding to support homelessness prevention activities such as emergency and transitional shelter, rapid re-housing and housing information and referral services for houseless people or those at risk of becoming houseless.

Forsyth County

• The total budget proposed is $569 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year. This marks a $36.3 million increase, or 6.8 percent increase, compared to last year

• The proposed balanced budget maintains the current property tax rate of 67.78 cent per $100 of property value

• Like in Guilford County, the largest portion of the county budget is taken up by school funding which totals $181.2 million, or 31.8 percent. This reflects a 4.5 percent increase from last year. This includes budgeting for salary adjustments for classified staff, and increases related to school police officers.

• Funding for public safety will total $97.9 million and take up 17.2 percent of the budget. This includes the sheriff’s office ($69.6 million), emergency services ($26.1 million), the Family Justice Center (S407,935), the animal shelter ($1.3 million) and emergency management ($500,730). The funding reflects a $528,388 decrease to funding for the sheriff’s office compared to last year — Personal Services are increasing $2,675,954, or 5.4 percent while Operating Costs are decreasing by $2,435,671.

WINSTON-SALEM

To learn more about the budget and view the proposed FY 2023-24 budget, go to cityofws.org/budget. According to Budget and Performance Management Department Director Scott Tesh, the adopted budget documents are usually not available until August.

• The budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year is $607.8 million — $2.1 million more than the initially proposed budget

• The property tax rate is rising to 66.1 cents — a 2.5 cent increase. The tax rate increase is allocated to the general fund — 1.5 cents covering non-police personnel and operating increases and 1 cent covering police pay plan changes.

• Water and sewer rates increase 7 percent on July 1, 2023, while stormwater fees increase 8 percent, effective Jan. 1, 2024.

• The budget eliminates 50 vacant police officer positions to help fund the increase in police pay. $52,500 will be the new minimum salary for a police officer and all current sworn law enforcement staff will receive a minimum salary adjustment of 10.3 percent.

• All city employees will be eligible for a merit raise of up to 6.5 percent and a salary supplement of up to $2,000 per employee, depending on salary.

• The minimum wage for city workers will rise to $15.45 per hour on Jan. 1, 2024.

• This year the city will be spending a proposed total of $94.3 million on the police department. Last year the department was allotted a total of $87.2 million. The city’s fire department — which had a budget of $41.1 million last year — is slated to spend $47.1 million this fiscal year according to Budget Manager Sarah Coffey. The budget also funds the first year of the city’s new mental health response team — the BEAR Team — at $836,400. As an alternative to police response to nonviolent mental health calls, the program also provides follow-up services.

• Last year Winston-Salem Transit Authority had a budget of $23 million. This year’s budget allocates $23.57 million. The $2.1 million increase from the initially proposed budget includes an additional $214,000 which will go toward one-time supplemental pay for WSTA employees.

• Greater Winston-Salem, Inc. and the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership are now receiving $150,000 each. Last year GWSI received $100,000 and DWSP received $32,570. The significant increase to DWSP is due to “funding for a maintenance contract for Merschel Park,” the budget states. DWSP’s Jason Thiel earned $110,000 according to tax records from 2022