Asheville City Council met with grim tidings as its members began public budget planning for the city’s next fiscal year. At a Tuesday work session prior to Council’s formal meeting, city staffers reported that Asheville faces an estimated $30 million gap between revenues and expenses for fiscal 2026-27.
Lindsay Spangler, Asheville’s budget and performance manager, emphasized that the $30 million figure was an early projection. But she told Council that many factors were all but certain to push the city’s expenses substantially higher.
Chief among those cost drivers is debt on $80 million in bonds, which Asheville voters approved in 2024 for parks, affordable housing, transportation, and public safety. Although Asheville increased property taxes by roughly 8% this year to fund staff salary increases and maintain core services, Spangler said the city had delayed an even greater hike to cover bond payments due to the impacts of Hurricane Helene. She estimated the needed increase at 2.58 cents per $100 of assessed value, a roughly 5.8% rise over the current tax rate of 44.19 cents per $100.
Asheville will also need to cover roughly $5.5 million in higher employee health care costs, about $3 million more for bus services, and $1.8 million in security expenses at community centers. And some of the strategies the city used to balance its budget last year, such as taking out a $5 million loan from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and drawing down $2.6 million from its financial reserves, can’t be repeated.
Spangler noted that the $30 million gap did not include any potential new spending, such as cost-of-living increases for municipal employees or the addition of another shift at the Asheville Fire Department — something for which Council had signaled support in the last budget cycle. Even maintaining current services, Spangler said, will require higher property taxes and city fees.
Council member Maggie Ullman remarked that this year’s budget was easily the most challenging she had faced since joining the body in 2022. She acknowledged that many Asheville residents are facing affordability issues of their own, and she pledged to minimize the impact of any tax increases.
“The idea of putting this all on the backs of every citizen, I just can’t imagine we’re going to do that. We know this would be so hard for our public to absorb,” Ullman said. “Just as everyone out there is really struggling with groceries and cost of living and inflation, and it’s hurting all of our wallets, we’re seeing it reflected in the city budget as well.”
Council’s first public comment session on the budget will be held Tuesday, Feb. 10. A formal public hearing is scheduled for May 26, and the budget adoption vote is set for June 9.
Other tidbits
- After being removed from the agenda in both November and December, the lease of a new West Asheville base for the Asheville Police Department finally received Council approval. As previously reported by BPR, some West Asheville residents and business owners had shared concerns that shifting the base from Haywood Road to a new, larger space at the Tanger Outlets on Brevard Road would reduce public safety in the neighborhood. APD Chief Jackie Stepp told Council that officers would still have access to the Haywood Road facility and that policing patrol levels would remain unchanged. Kim Roney was the lone vote against the lease, citing a lack of budgetary transparency and the APD’s failure to engage residents early in the process.
- Council approved two agreements with the N.C. Department of Transportation to expand bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. The first will put about $2.09 million in city dollars toward a bike/pedestrian bridge across the French Broad River near Craven Street in the River Arts District, while the second will contribute $2.98 million toward a 1.2-mile multiuse path along Deaverview Road in West Asheville. Construction on the two projects is slated to start in 2028 and 2031, respectively, with federal money covering the remaining $20.26 million cost.
- During its budget work session, Council also heard an update on planning for restoration of French Broad River Park and Azalea Park. D. Tyrell McGirt, the city’s parks and recreation director, noted that “special interest groups” — particularly advocates for pickleball and skating facilities — have played an outsized role in public engagement thus far. He said he hoped to get more feedback on park plans from underrepresented communities such as Black and low-income residents. Design concepts for both parks are scheduled to come before Council Tuesday, March 10.
- Fairview-based T.P. Howard’s Plumbing received a roughly $8.95 million contract to install nearly 22,000 linear feet of water lines across city neighborhoods and commercial corridors. Per a city staff report on the work, the project will primarily address “existing problematic water lines” that are liable for failure due to age and future demand.
- Asheville approved a nearly $100,000 contract with Florida-based transportation consultancy Kittelson & Associates to update the city’s traffic calming policy. A staff report notes that the existing policy, last revised in 2014, leads to “long project timelines and unmet resident expectations” for measures like speed bumps and allowing on-street parking. The consultant expects to wrap up work early next year.
- Council signed off on a change to Asheville’s development ordinance required by a recently passed state law. As outlined in a staff presentation, the new rules eliminate the current one-year waiting period for developers to submit new plans to the city after withdrawing old plans or having their projects denied. The state requirement has drawn criticism from advocacy groups such as the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, who said it removes a tool “to ensure that applicants file complete and accurate information for applications and do not waste staff time.”
Asheville City Council regularly meets every second and fourth Tuesday at the Council Chamber on the second floor of City Hall, 70 Court Plaza, beginning at 5 p.m. However, the next meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 27, has been moved to 10 a.m. to allow Council and city staff participation in the annual Point-in-Time Count of the area’s homeless population. See the full recording and documents from the Jan. 13 meeting, as well as the full recording of the Jan. 13 work session.
