Budget priorities emerge from Town Council weekend retreat
Strategic planning meeting focuses on upcoming fiscal year
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
March 7, 2022
Town Manager Josh Harrold, right, participates in a strategic planning meeting with elected officials, March 5, as the town sets priorities ahead of the 2022-23 budget season. Photo by Fred McCormick
Black Mountain officials traded the dais in town hall for a conference room in the Terry Estate Manor House, March 5, as they gathered for a weekend strategic planning meeting.
The five-hour session, which was facilitated by David and Amy Smitherman of Winston-Salem-based consulting firm, Bear Strategies, Inc., concluded with a list of priorities for the town’s 2022-23 budget.
Four members of the Town Council, Mayor Larry Harris, Town Manager Josh Harrold and Town Clerk Savannah Parrish attended the gathering, while Ryan Stone was absent. Four members of the public comprised the audience.
The workshop was designed to encourage brainstorming and develop “a road map for the budget,” Harrold said at the outset.
The facilitators utilized the town’s comprehensive plan, adopted last May, as a guide in the process.
“We’re trying to put together a budget tool to bring your vision into action, and have a firm set of priorities to guide your staff to help implement things you’ve discussed implementing in the past,” David said, as he addressed the group.
Council members were asked to give issues each of them believed needed to be addressed in the session. A range of staffing concerns, public safety, infrastructure, waste reduction and investment in the recreation and parks department were among the responses.
Staff compensation and classification, pay compression and increasing demands on the employees who provide services through the town’s 11 departments quickly came into focus as concerns shared by members of the town council.
David Smitherman of Bear Strategies, Inc., facilitates a workshop with his wife Amy, March 5, as the Black Mountain Town Council met the Terry Estate Manor House to set priorities for the upcoming budget season. Photo by Fred McCormick
“Our town is growing, and citizens ask more of our staff all the time, the town council asks more of them all the time, and I don’t know if we’ve looked, at least in recent times, at staff capacity,” Pam King said. “We talk about big projects coming along, but how much more can we ask of our staff? They’re maxed out.”
King added that her assessment of the current workload of town employees was not based on complaints from staff, but rather her personal observations.
“Citizens have every right to say what they want from their town, and 90% of the time, I agree with them,” she said. “But, there’s only so much staff capacity, so patience is a virtue. At some point, you have to say it’s a conversation we should have.”
The mayor proposed beginning those discussions with a workshop, following the budget season.
“We can start this process, and we’ll likely need to do a study,” Harris said. “The thing that concerns me, and I believe the council as well, is that the labor pool is not going to be what it once was. So, we know that labor’s going to cost more.”
King agreed with the mayor’s concerns regarding recruitment and retention, adding that compensation for existing staff was an “ethical component” of the discussion.
“The notion that we have full-time staff making less than a living wage, in my opinion, is wrong,” she said. “I get that it costs money, and I understand that, but I’m just saying out loud that this shouldn’t be the case.”
Similar issues, highlighted by BMPD Chief Steve Parker in his Feb. 14 annual report to the board, extend to the town’s public safety departments. Doug Hay cited the presentation during the staffing discussion, acknowledging that the safety of citizens is the town council’s top priority.
“We heard from the police chief a few weeks ago about the department being understaffed, and it was quite alarming to me,” Hay said. “So, whether we’re looking at a study across all departments later this year or next year, there are certain things we need to address immediately.”
Harrold responded that council members can expect to see additional public safety positions in the upcoming budget proposal.
The workshop shifted to a review of the town’s comprehensive plan, a document intended to guide growth and development in the town. Elevate Black Mountain, the current iteration of the plan, was developed over two years, beginning in 2019.
The group reviewed the document’s implementation matrix and identified top priorities within the comprehensive plan’s six categories. The strategies contained in the plan were determined following a series of public input meetings during the development phase of Elevate Black Mountain.
The exercise generated a list of actionable measures board members wished to address in the upcoming fiscal year, while a subsequent review of the current budget served to refine the process.
Harrold provided an overview of 2021-22 revenues and expenses, focusing specifically on the $10.8 million general fund, a 20% increase over the previous year.
“Our biggest source of revenue is our property tax, which accounted for almost half of the budget, at $4.7 million,” the town manager said. “The rest of it is made up of sales tax, other taxes, unrestricted revenues, permits and restricted revenues.”
Black Mountain elected officials meet for a weekend strategic planning workshop, March 5, to identify priorities in the 2022-23 budget. Photo by Fred McCormick
The town maintained a revenue neutral property tax rate in the current fiscal year, but is projecting a 12% increase in ad valorem revenue, which Harrold attributed to the county’s 2021 property revaluation. Unrestricted revenues, which include the Electricity Franchise, Video Programming, Telecommunications and local ABC taxes, are projected to increase by 26% over last year, accounting for $1 million of the current general fund. Sales taxes, which are collected by Buncombe County and distributed to local municipalities, are anticipated to increase by nearly 6%.
Roughly 80% of the town’s current budget is assigned to personnel and operating costs, leaving 15% for capital projects, such as the $140,000 renovation of the Lake Tomahawk tennis courts, public safety vehicle fleet replacement and equipment, and solar panels at the Carver Community Center. A debt reduction payment of $750,000 represents the remaining 5% of the general fund expenditures in the current budget.
“There are a lot of things you want to do, but not a lot of sources for new revenue,” the facilitator told the board. “However, the crux of why we’re here is to figure out what the board would like to spend money on the next two budgets.”
The group’s final exercise reviewed around 20 potential projects identified during the workshop, as council members were asked to prioritize them using color-coded stickers. The initiation of a compensation and classification study and implementation of recommendations was marked as a top priority by each member of the council.
Officials also identified renovation of the Grey Eagle Arena, which hosts the town’s youth soccer programs, as another priority in the upcoming budget season.
Other recreation programs and initiatives were also deemed priorities, as four town council members indicated a desire to explore options for pickleball courts, and others emphasized a need to update the department’s master plan, a document last revised in 2017.
Reducing waste and expanding the town’s recycling program, as identified in the Green and Resilient section of the comprehensive plan, was also determined to be a priority.
While dates have yet to be announced, the town will hold a series of budget workshops and a public hearing prior to the 2022-23 fiscal year, which begins July 1.