Since announcing a $30 million budget gap earlier this year, the City of Asheville has worked to whittle down that number to something more palatable.
The gap has already been cut by more than half, down to $14.2 million, due to increased property tax revenue projections, a lower-than-expected transit contract and increased utility fees.
On Tuesday, city staff proposed more ideas which, if approved by Asheville City Council, would slice an additional $6.9 million off the budget.
The reductions include the elimination of vacant positions, a decrease to some city-staff benefits and a pause on funding for community programming such as neighborhood projects, holiday events and public art. But Council isn’t only looking at cuts. It’s also considering increased funding for the police department, fire department and other new positions.
City Council member Sage Turner said at a March 24 budget work session that the proposed cuts are “somewhat of a slaughtering of community services.”
Mayor Manheimer quipped back: “I think you just gave every journalist their favorite line to use.”
Here’s what the city is proposing to shrink the budget by $6.9 million:
- Pause funding to the Housing Trust Fund ($500,000), Public Art Maintenance Fund ($274,000) and AVL Arts Grant Program ($25,000).
- Reduce community center hours and security presence at some centers. Summer hours would remain the same; off-season hours would decrease by 13%.
- Eliminate 1% of the 401K match for city staff (employees still receive 5% match).
- Reduce some litter cleanup and landscaping services.
- Get rid of all non-critical staff vacancies.
- Cut back on staff training, supplies and software budgets
- Eliminate $98,000 in financial support for holiday events.
Lindsay Spangler, the city’s Budget and Performance Manager, said with these reductions, the budget gap would decrease to about $7 million.
Here’s what’s bringing up expenses in this year's budget:
- $6.5 million in debt service for the latest round of General Obligation bonds
- $5.1 in increased health care and retirement costs for city staff
- $3.75 million for pay raises for the city’s 1,396 staff members.
- $1.8 million to fill 24 long-vacant positions with the Asheville Police Department
- $1.8 million for community center security
The city is also considering $7.5 million in additional expenditures including:
- Two new positions to implement General Obligation bond projects
- One Affordable Housing Bond Manager ($99K)
- One Capital Program Manager for Public Works ($130K)
- 16 new firefighters
BPR has filed a records request to learn about the remainder of the funding requests, but did not receive this information as of publication time.
To learn more about how the City of Asheville determines its annual budget, read our budget primer.
