Inside county’s budget: Some positions frozen, employee raises, racial disparity funding

Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio’s $2.1 billion proposed budget projects increased property and sales tax revenues without rate increases in the coming fiscal year.

The proposed budget also includes just half of what Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools requested for its annual funding increase, a 5% salary increase for all county employees and a minimum wage increase for county workers from $15 to $20 an hour.

People can comment on the budget during a public hearing May 25. Commissioners are expected to adopt the new budget June 22. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Here are some highlights:

The economy

▪ Diorio advised commissioners maintain a “strategy of fiscal discipline” as inflation, the war in Ukraine and other factors could lead to slower economic growth than previous years.

▪ The total value of taxable property in Mecklenburg County is expected to increase next fiscal year by 2.6%. Diorio recommended keeping the current property tax rate of 61.69 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. Even without increasing the tax rate, she expects the county to pull in $26.8 million more through property taxes than during the current fiscal year.

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▪ Diorio also didn’t recommend increasing the sales tax rate. Revenue from sales tax is expected to increase from about $246 million in the current fiscal year to $258 million during the next one, which starts July 1. Revenue has grown steadily over the years. In fiscal year 2015, the county pulled in $159 million through sales tax.

IS IT ENOUGH? Mecklenburg County gave CMS half of the budget increase it asked for.

Charlotte Mecklenburg-Schools

▪ The county dictates part of CMS’ budget. The district requested $578.4 million from the county, a $40.4 million or 7.5% increase from last fiscal year. Diorio recommended an increase of $19.9 million or 3.7%.

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Salaries and raises

▪ The county recommended spending $16.6 million to give all staff members a 5% raise. The budget also proposes raising county employees’ minimum wage to $20 an hour, which would cost an additional $3.5 million.

▪ Diorio asked for one-time bonuses for employees who worked through the pandemic. They could run from $650 to $2,250, depending on the person and how long they’ve worked for the county.

▪ The proposed budget includes $2.7 million to pay for retention bonuses for jail staff, which began in the current fiscal year.

▪ Dioro’s proposal also would set aside $100,000 of federal pandemic funding to pay for recruitment bonuses for emergency medical technicians.

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Jail

▪ Diorio’s recommendations for the jail come amid scandals about jail understaffing that attracted state attention.

▪ Part of the county’s funding for the jail comes from federal inmates, which the federal government pays the county to house. However, the federal government has reduced the number of its inmates, bringing the total jail population down and reducing funding.

▪ Diorio’s budget recommends a number of cost-saving measures, including the closure of the juvenile detention facility effective Dec. 1 and freezing 90 vacant positions. Her budget estimates 250 federal inmates will stay in Charlotte.

▪ Reporting by The Charlotte Observer in March found that how many federal inmates stay here is unclear, but a former top U.S. marshal for the Western District estimated then the total would be far fewer than 250. County spokesman Alex Burnett said Diorio worked with the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office to arrive at the 250 number.

▪ Barnett said Sheriff’s Office strategy is to close the juvenile jail Dec. 1 to consolidate staff at the main jail.

Arts and Culture

▪ Diorio suggested spending $500,000 to help pay for Charlotte SHOUT!, a multi-week festival scheduled for spring 2023.

▪ The budget would also give $250,000 to the Mint Museum’s upcoming Picasso Exhibit.

Housing

▪ The budget proposal includes $12.7 million for affordable housing, broken down into several categories.

▪ $3.1 million would go to the Billingsley Road mixed-income development. The project called for the construction of 288 total residential units: 155 rentals, 80 rental units reserved for senior citizens and 53 for-sale units, the Observer previously reported.

▪ Some other allotments include $2.5 million for critical home repair, $2.5 million for supportive housing contracts, $3 million for rental subsidies and $500,000 to “continue our research and develop strategies to address the impacts of corporate-owned housing in Mecklenburg County.”

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Environment

▪ Of the proposed budget’s $52 million for “environmental leadership,” Diorio recommended $35 million go to buying land. The rest includes money for solar energy, electric charging stations, stream restoration and invasive species control.

Racial disparities

▪ The county manager told commissioners reducing racial disparities is “a cross-cutting factor that is a consideration across the decision-making framework.” Her staff’s proposed budget includes $1.1 million earmarked directly for this purpose.

▪ That includes $470,000 to help expand primary health care service in partnership with StarMed and The Blessing Foundation, $389,000 for the Public Health Department to reduce food insecurity, $100,000 for a dental program with the with the Lake Norman Community Health Clinic and $84,000 to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library to boost service to non-English speaking residents.