Buncombe County Commissioner Proposed Budget Changes For Next Fiscal Year
This week, Buncombe County released some proposals for its budget for the next fiscal year after the County Commission’s final budget workshop. The commissioner has yet to set a property tax rate, and the final decision will be made in June.
Here are the key budget highlights from the county:
FY26 year-end projections
As of April 20, the budget for the current fiscal year is experiencing more revenue and fewer expenditures than expected. The approved spending plan budgeted for $437.5 million in revenue and is now projected to have $444.6 million in revenue. The approved expenditures were for $438.1 million, and the County is now projected to spend $431.2 million.
The additional revenue comes from an increase in property and sales tax receipts, while the decrease in spending is from less than anticipated costs associated with salaries, benefits, operating costs, and program support. In all, Buncombe County is on track to return $10-13.5 million to fund balance.
FY27 changes
Since the last budget work session, County staff has updated projections for the fiscal year 2027 budget with an additional $5.5 million in revenue and a decrease of $2 million in expenditures. In all, Buncombe County is looking at $485.1 million in proposed spending. The spending breakdown is as follows:
Education: $137.3 million
Public safety: $106.4 million
Human services: $100.3 million
General government: $72.7 million
Debt: $28.4 million
Interfund transfers: $15.5 million
Cultural and recreational: $12.9 million
Economic and physical development: $11.7 million
For more specifics on some of the proposed spending, you can view the FY27 changes section of the budget work session presentation.
For revenues, the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget would have the County bringing in $451.8 million. The revenue breakdown is as follows:
Property tax: $303.5 million
Local option sales tax: $49.5 million
Intergovernmental: $46.3 million
Sales and services: $24.6 million
Permits and fees: $7.5 million
Other taxes and licenses: $6.9 million
Other revenue (investment earnings, indirect cost recovery, and asset sales): $6.6 million
Interfund transfers: $5.1 million
Fund balance appropriation: $1.9 million
Strategies to balance the budget
Reducing expenditures and increasing revenue are two ways Commissioners and County staff continue to look at balancing the budget. Based on recommendations, County staff reduced the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget by more than $25 million since the first budget presentation. Commissioners will also consider other budget cuts ahead of adopting the budget in June.
Increasing revenue can be achieved by increasing the tax rate or using fund balance for one-time expenditures.
County staff has identified some major areas of decreased revenue and increased expenditures. Some areas of revenue decline include:
$2 million estimated loss for Health and Human Services revenue to administer SNAP benefits, due to changes from HB1
$1.6 million less for 911 cost-sharing per the agreement with City of Asheville
Some areas of operating increases include:
$1 million for increased jail health
$4.8 million for cost-of-living-adjustment increases
$3.8 million for proposed new positions
$5.3 million for increased health insurance costs
The proposed budget would need a property tax rate of 43.54 cents per $100 of assessed value, which would be 4.32 cents above the revenue-neutral rate of 39.22 cents without any change in expenditures. Commissioners instructed County staff to continue looking at operating expenses, staffing needs, and other ways to potentially decrease expenditures ahead of formal budget approval.
Fire district budgeting
At their last meeting, Commissioners approved a unified fire district that consolidates the 20 districts into a single-tax district. The goal of the new unified district is to:
Improve safety of firefighters and community members
Reduce the risks of loss of life and property
Provide a more sustainable funding mechanism for all of Buncombe County’s fire protection needs
Establish basic countywide service standards
For the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, the unified fire tax district would help provide an increase of 7.7% for salary budgets, fund benefit requests and some additional positions for safety purposes, pay for requested debt service, and more. Overall, the estimated revenue for the unified fire tax district would create an estimated $62.9 million in revenue based on a proposed tax rate of 11.73 cents.
The final unified fire tax district rate will be approved with the overall fiscal year 2027 budget in June.
Homeowner Grant Program update
County staff recommends a change to the Homeowner Grant Program that would increase the amount of people it could help and diversify the ways assistance would be provided. The proposal would discontinue the program as it currently is and increase the General Assistance budget for Health and Human Services by $280,000. This would allow the Economic Services team to assess individual needs and provide increased offerings from its full array of services based on those needs.
Grant awards
Buncombe County funds several grant programs that help with the Commissioners’ strategic priorities like affordable housing and early childhood education. For the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, Commissioners are considering about $14.5 million for those efforts. The following shows how some of that money would be distributed:
$7.1 million for affordable housing projects and an additional $9.9 million from an existing general obligation bond allocation would go to 11 organizations and help support more than 850 housing units.
$4 million for early childhood education initiatives that would support 17 organizations with 20 programs.
$1.2 million for behavioral health for five organizations helping with clinic availability, youth substance abuse prevention, psychological support for the unhoused community, and more.
$1 million for Strategic Partnership Grants that would help support 16 organizations and programs such as County trash pickups through Asheville Greenworks and food access programing through MANNA FoodBank and Bounty & Soul.
$500,000 for Isaac Coleman Grants that would support five organizations and programs helping disparities in high school graduation rates by investing in community-driven solutions that help at-risk students.
$2.1 million for Home and Community Care Block Grants for 19 organizations to help support 27 programs that help maintain independence and provide protection for older adults.
You can see more specific information about the proposed funding and programs via the Grant Awards section of the presentation made to Commissioners during the budget work session.
Next steps
For more details on today’s budget work session, you can view the entire presentation staff made to Commissioners. On May 5, the recommended budget will be presented to Commissioners during their meeting, a public hearing is set for the May 19 meeting, and adoption of the budget is slated for June 2 at the meeting. You can stay up to date with the budget process on the County’s website and can view all budget meetings via the County’s Facebook page.
