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FY17 Budget: Hike in Property Tax, Trash Fee
June Town Board Mtg: $848K Plan
June 10, 2016

O
riental’s Town Board this week approved a General Fund spending plan of $848,000 for the 2016-2017 fiscal year that starts on July first. The Board also okayed a $309,000 budget to run the Town Water plant for the next year.

To help pay for some of those General Fund expenditures, the Board also raised the property tax by .02 up to .22. That would mean that for every $100,000 of property they own, owners would pay an additional $20 to the Town. That 10% rise in the property tax will be seen in next year’s tax bill.

Property tax makes up more than half of the revenue to the General Fund, bringing in more than $438,000 yearly. (Police tickets, not so much – $150 a year. Oriental isnot a speed trap town….) .

For more granularity of how the Town plans to spend the $848K, click here for the line-by-line budget.

A shorter synopsis, the Budget Ordinance, as approved by the Board, is here.

The Town Manager’s Budget Message as published before the meeting, is here.

In addition to the tax hike, Oriental residents will also have to pay $3 a month more for curbside garbage and recycling pickup. The hike to $13.50 a month comes closer to covering the fees the Town pays the hauler; that money had been coming out of the Town’s General Fund.

Town Manager Diane Miller says that even with the hike, residents of Oriental fare better than those outside the town limits when it comes to waste pickup and what they pay. Some who live outside of town pay haulers $35 a month and for that, only get trash pickup says Miller, but not the curbside recycling nor the yard waste disposal.available to Oriental residents.

The additional $3 charge will appear on the monthly water bill as of August.

There was a public hearing on the budget.eeIn a letter to the Board, former Commissioner Jennifer Roe took issue with the tax hike and some of what it would pay for; she questioned the practice of the Town paying 100% of the premiums for Town employees’ Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance.

In other action Tuesday night, the Town Board:

- took a stand opposing proposed legislation in the NC Legislature that would loosen standards on what could be dumped in to the Neuse. The nc House and Senate bills would also suspend environmental monitoring. The Town Board passed a resolution against both.

- voted to reserve the Town Docks on July 30 for the Parrothead Regatta.

- voted to close Hodges Street to vehicles between Broad and South Water during the Ol’ Front Porch Music Festival on October 15. The two blocks will become the festival’s Village Marketplace.

- briefly discussed the possibility of a walkway/bike and golf cart path that would lead from the Town-owned water plant property on Gilgo to the adjacent (And soon-to-open) Piggly Wiggly grocery.

Some residents have asked for that back way in to avoid the more heavily travelled Upper Broad Street/Hwy 55 – and also to avoid running afoul of the law which prohibits golf carts on state highways. It was initially thought the Board would need access to some of Chris Fulcher’s acreage which extends from the Gilgo Street asphalt. But the Town Manager says that won’ t be necessary as the pathway could run across the wooded border between the “‘Pig” and the water plant.

Running parallel to that border is a long watery ditch and a wooden walkway may be needed to bridge that moat. Diane Miller says there’s a “willingness” for the Town Board and “Pig” owner, Billy Flockhart to make the pedestrian path work, but not right away. She says the grocery owner’s “main thing is getting (the store) open.”

Flockhart is aiming for a July 20 opening.

Posted Friday June 10, 2016 by Melinda Penkava


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