Politics

Commissioners pitch priorities for 2025-26 budget

By Bill Moss, Published: January 22, 2025

A full plate of capital projects — saying nothing of the high-priority Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuild — did not prevent Henderson County commissioners from announcing their wish list.

At the tail end of a daylong retreat last week, commissioners took the floor one by one to declare their priorities for the 2025-26 budget. What commissioners say they want during the first stage of budget-drafting often ends up in the county manager’s recommended budget three months later. Even though Hurricane Helene recovery looms large in the coming year and commissioners have committed to the largest capital project in county history, there still could be room for extras. New commissioner Sheila Franklin even has an idea for how to pay for special projects without raising property taxes.

Here's a look at priorities commissioners pitched last week:

Local-option sales tax

“I definitely was looking forward to funding the Berkeley complex, and I enjoyed delving into that project even deeper,” Franklin said. “I don’t see costs going down on anything, and my No. 1 priority — I think many of us feel the same way — is that we do not want to increase (property) taxes. It was brought my attention from a resident in Crab Creek to investigate a special-purpose local option sales tax. It’s something that many counties do — anywhere from a quarter to a penny sales tax extra, and put it toward particular projects or earmark for certain things. Basically it puts some of the cost on people that are visiting the area all the time and it can help offset what our tax base is here.”

Wanted: mentors for teenagers

Rebecca McCall urged support for the county’s new mentoring program for school kids, good jobs for young people, workforce housing and a central ag building.

She’d like to see the county fund “an additional position that we talked about for Soil & Water to run the county’s farmland preservation initiative,” she said.

McCall mentors five school children at Flat Rock Middle School and East Henderson High School through the Pathfinders program, which she helped to start last year when she was chair of the Board of Commissioners.

“I’m getting as much out of it as those kids are getting out of it,” she said. “They actually look forward to it. I don’t know if it’s just because they get out of class 15 minutes or if it’s because we’re actually showing an interest in their life. I want to encourage everybody here that if you’re not participating as a mentor, that you will eventually, especially as we expand it to the other schools, because we have 6,000 students that fall in this age range. … It will change the lives of these young people, I guarantee it.”

She also suggested commissioners should urge the county’s legislative delegation to find money for a central farm support center.

“Let’s not lose focus on the new ag building that we need to build that will house not only agriculture but the N.C. Cooperative Extension, AgHC, Soil & Water,” she said. “All of that needs to be housed in one location.”

‘Employees make us look good’

Core responsibilities are carried out every day by county staff, observed Michael Edney, noting this was the 23^rd budget he’s voted on.

“Our employees are the ones who make us look good and who provide the services,” he said. “So we’ve got to take care of them, make sure that we retain the ones we’ve got. Don’t get outbid by the city or Asheville-Buncombe or anything else. We’ve got very good people and I want to keep them. … Then we’ve got to focus on rebuilding and restoring our county from this damn hurricane. That’s got to be our No. 1 thing.”

‘Let’s do it right the first time’

Jay Egolf, the other new commissioner, applauded his colleagues’ earlier vote to add a prep softball diamond and tennis courts to the Berkeley Park sports complex.

“I just don’t want to have it done and then go back and say, ‘Man, I wish we would have done this, I wish we would have done that.’ Let’s do it right the first time,” he said. “It might be more expensive, but I think down the road, will cost us less, it’ll last longer and it’ll be done right.”

His service on the School Board made him familiar with what he described as an urgent capital need.

“It’s not sexy and it’s not glamorous but we really need a bus garage,” he said. “I went and toured it and they were having to work on the buses outside. We need a safe place to make sure the buses are running right and they’re going to safely transport kids, they’re not going to break down.”

Unsung heroes of Hurricane Helene

Public safety has been a top priority of the board for many years, Chair Bill Lapsley said, with a focus on the sheriff’s office, EMS, public health.

“The one that is kind of the hidden component of public safety is our volunteer fire departments,” he said. “What we just went through four months ago with a hurricane just brought even more to the forefront to me how much we count on those folks to help us in serious times. And boy, did they step up in this event.”

Newly appointed to the Fire & Rescue Advisory Committee, Lapsley announced that he had “made a commitment to go and visit each of the volunteer fire departments, meet with the chief and go over their operation, their budget, their debt, all of the critical components that we historically haven’t gotten our fingers into. … They’ve got unique problems, and they’ve got a tax base that’s supporting them that’s been dramatically impacted.”

He also expressed strong support for the Clear Creek sewer plant, which commissioners paused when they failed to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to obligate $11 million in federal grant money for construction. (The money went instead to the Berkeley Park sportsplex.)

“We’ve got to do everything we can to get that done,” Lapsley said. “We’ve been barking up that tree for how many years now. Let’s keep the pedal to the metal and get it out for bid and under construction. I know there are folks out there towards Edneyville that are in dire need of this sewer service.”

The Etowah sewer system also needs attention.

“This board made a serious commitment to the Etowah community last summer when we purchased the system,” he said. “We’ve come to find out it’s in worse shape than we thought. We’ve got to stay focused on that. I feel like this board made a commitment to the folks out there to look after that, and that has implications for growth and development in that end of the county, and I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of that.”