Orange County commissioners are meeting tonight to discuss “budget drivers” for the 2013-2014 budget. Materials in the agenda show that if requests from departments and the two school districts are funded as requested, a 10.4 cent hike in the property tax rate would be imposed on property owners. The current county property tax rate is 85.8 cents per $100 of valuation.
The known budget drivers for the FY 2013-14 budget are as follows:
? Medical Health Insurance increases – up to 8.5% $ .23 million
? Retirees Health Annual Funding Requirement 5.30 million
? Emergency Services Requests 1.78 million
? School Districts Budget Requests – up to 8.50 million
? Total budget drivers/impacts $15.81 million
This represents 10.04 cents if applied to the current property tax rate for the FY2013-14 budget.
What is the existing tax-and-fee burden in Orange County, and how does it compare to surrounding counties? JLF’s Michael Lowrey determined that in the latest By The Numbers report.
Durham (5.86 percent) County moves up three spots to No. 6 when counties are ranked by the tax-and-fee burden as a share of personal income. Wake (4.60 percent) ranks No. 27, while Orange (4.60 percent) ranks No. 28. Most other area counties ranked closer to the state median of 4.15 percent. That includes Vance (4.33 percent), Franklin (3.82 percent), Johnston (3.80 percent), and Person (3.50 percent). Granville (3.42 percent) and Chatham (3.30 percent) ranked among the 25 counties with the lowest per person tax burdens.
