It’s May, which means it’s once again time for Wake County taxpayers to get hit with yet another tax hike.
On Monday evening, Wake County Manager David Ellis presented his recommended budget for fiscal year 2025 to the Wake County Board of Commissioners. The proposed budget is for about $2.07 billion….Wake County is committed to keeping residential property taxes revenue-neutral. That means most homeowners will pay a lower percentage of their property value in taxes but, since property values are up about 52.5% compared to four years ago, the amount that property owners pay will probably go up. (emphasis added)
This is relevant because Wake County assesses property values every four years. So in January of this year, property owners saw their property values reassessed at much higher levels, and this is the value used to calculate their property tax.
For instance, the median value home four years ago was about $300,000, where it stayed until the reassessment this year. As of 2024, that has risen significantly to $462,000. So if the proposed budget is approved, the tax bill on the median value home would increase from $1,971 to $2,359, good for a whopping 20 percent increase.
The property tax bill for a median value home would increase a whopping 20 percent.
This would come on top of the five percent tax hike imposed last year.
Moreover, the budget proposal requests an additional $49 million for Wake County schools, which would be a one-year increase of 7.6 percent, despite enrollment projected to be flat. Much more notably, however, is that the requested $693 million would mark a 63% increase in county school funding in just seven years. This is particularly remarkable in light of the fact that enrollment in Wake County Public schools has fallen by 0.3 percent since 2018-19.
Why does WCPSS need 63% more money to educate 0.3% fewer students?
Note: The original version of this post incorrectly cited a decline in enrollment since 2018-19 of 1.3%.
