In a unanimous vote Tuesday night, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners signed off on the county’s largest-ever budget. The $698 million spending plan for fiscal year 2026-27 — roughly 12% larger than the current budget — includes increases to each of the tax rates under the county’s control.
The new property tax rate will be 43.2 cents per $100 of assessed value, about 10% higher than revenue-neutral. The figure is slightly lower than County Manager Avril Pinder’s initial proposal of 43.52 cents per $100, thanks to revised tax collection projections, the use of additional savings and the removal of several proposed new positions. However, it still represents a substantially larger hike than the 5.6% increase approved last year.
Most residents outside of Asheville city limits will also pay more for fire services. Commissioners set the tax rate for Buncombe’s new unified fire district, which covers unincorporated areas along with Biltmore Forest, Montreat and Woodfin, at 11.96 cents per $100 —– around 30% higher than revenue-neutral. That rate is up from Pinder’s initial recommendation of 11.73 cents, but doesn’t reach the 14.37 cents the county’s fire chiefs had requested.
And taxpayers living in the Asheville City Schools district will see a bump in the supplemental tax they pay to support local education. The adopted rate of 8.64 cents per $100 exceeds the revenue-neutral rate by a little over 6%.
“We made hard decisions last year during the budget process due to [Hurricane] Helene to reduce our budget by millions, cutting programs and limiting operations,” said Commissioner Terri Wells. “I stand by those difficult decisions that we made last year, and it is now time to begin to rebuild our budget.”
Wells’s colleagues echoed those remarks, noting that the new budget put more money toward Buncombe’s staff capacity, affordable housing and strategic partnerships with local nonprofits. But they also blamed challenges outside of their control for driving much of the county’s higher costs.
Commissioner Parker Sloan was particularly critical of state and national government. The General Assembly’s underfunding of K-12 education, he argued, had left local officials stretching to meet schools’ needs. And Congress had paid for the tax cuts of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, he said, by shifting some of the burden of healthcare funding to county governments.
“Those choices that we make, those choices of neglect and delay and sabotage, at some times, come with a cost. A cost that today is in part beared by the property tax payers of Buncombe County,” Sloan concluded.
The new budget comes into effect Wednesday, July 1.
More money matters
- The county accepted a nearly $37 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund the restoration of streambanks damaged by Hurricane Helene. The Emergency Watershed Protection program will reimburse costs such as debris removal and vegetation planting for 207 projects. Buncombe is seeking another $3.54 million in state and federal grants to cover engineering and permitting expenses for the work. Jennifer Harrison, Buncombe County’s agriculture and land resources director, told BPR that fixing all of the county’s streambank damage could run “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
- The board approved Buncombe’s $5 million purchase of the former JCPenny location on South Tunnel Road. Assistant County Manager Timothy Love told BPR that the site will support the county’s first standalone emergency operation center, with the potential for additional uses such as storage and 911 services. In response to community rumors that those uses could include emergency or homeless sheltering, county spokesperson Lillian Govus confirmed that the location “will not be used for sheltering of any kind.” The county also approved a $1 million budget increase to cover the acquisition; construction costs are estimated at another $30 million.
- Buncombe reallocated over $3.8 million of unspent pandemic-area federal recovery funds. Most will support Helene-related expenses for which the county can’t receive other funding, while $32,000 will buy radios for community paramedics. Nearly $3.5 million of the funds had been earmarked for an affordable housing project in downtown Asheville. But Jamie Brown, a county grants manager, told commissioners that storm-induced delays had prevented Buncombe from putting the money toward that purpose before a federal spending deadline.
Other tidbits
- Commissioners set a public hearing on $70 million of proposed bonds for Tuesday, June 16. As previously reported by BPR, the county is seeking voter approval for $40 million in borrowing to support affordable housing, as well as $30 million for land conservation. Referenda on the bond issues will be held as part of Buncombe’s midterm elections Tuesday, Nov. 3.
- At a briefing prior to the board’s formal meeting, Sheriff Quentin Miller raised concerns about overcrowding at the Buncombe County Detention Facility. Over the past six months, the jail’s average population has been 527, in excess of its design capacity — the maximum number of people it was designed to hold without triggering “immediate administrative and safety crises.”
- The board declared June to be “Gun Violence Prevention and Awareness Month” in Buncombe County. An accompanying proclamation noted that the county had experienced 48 gun deaths in 2025, up from 35 in 2024. Earlier this year, Asheville leaders issued a statement after “multiple incidents of gun violence that directly affected our city,” and in May, U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson convened local law enforcement for a roundtable discussion about violent crime.
Every first and third Tuesday, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners meets at 200 College St., Room 326, in downtown Asheville, beginning at 5 p.m. The board’s next regular meeting will take place Tuesday, June 16.
See the full recording and documents from the June 2 meeting.
