Winston-Salem City Budget Proposal Includes Property Tax Hike

Winston-Salem City Council is expected to vote on a new budget proposal for the next fiscal year at Monday's meeting. If it passes, taxes could be going up for homeowners.

The plan calls for a three and a half percent hike, or two cents for every $100 of taxable property. For example, a home that's valued at $150,000 dollars would see an increase of about $30 a year.

City manager Lee Garrity says the money is needed to make municipal salaries more competitive and make some updates that were delayed because of the recession.

“We deferred buying and replacing equipment and we also deferred pay raises for our employees and so now that the economy has picked up, we are seeing challenges there, but more importantly, we are losing employees to other jurisdictions,” says Garrity.

The police and fire departments would see some of the biggest investments.

Plans also include restarting a police cadet training program that ended at Forsyth Technical Community College several years ago.

Garrity says overall, 30 new city employees would be added. Some of those positions are related to maintenance costs for new buildings and projects approved by voters in a recent bond package.

The total budget proposal for the 2016-2017 fiscal year is $442 million.

Winston-Salem City Council will hold a public hearing before they vote on the measure at Monday's meeting.

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