Council Quickies: Brookhill Village, Budget and Break Point
Ryan Pitkin, Monday, June 12, 2023
Charlotte City Council kept its meeting short and sweet on Monday, unanimously approving the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, hearing an update on Brookhill Village and moving forward with a few other notable projects.
On the Agenda:
- Brookhill Village Update
- Budget Adoption
- Eastland and Project Break Point Funding
- Affordable Housing Projects
Brookhill Village
Monday night’s meeting began with Brookhill Village, which hadn’t been discussed by council in over a year. A recommended city/county collaborative investment — $3.5 million each — would help fund extensive renovations at the site and retain housing for 78 currently occupied households.
Griffin Brothers Companies has not yet finalized the development plans for the parts of the property expected to include market-rate, mixed-use development, but city/county investment would ensure that 100 housing units remain affordable/transitional through 2049.
Seventy-eight of the 100 affordable units would be legacy housing for those currently living there, with rents currently averaging $466, and the remaining 22 would be transitional workforce housing run by The Harvest Center.
The city’s piece of the investment would come from ARPA funding.
Budget Adoption
The first order of business on Monday was to adopt the $3.3-billion FY 2024 budget. You can learn more about the details of the budget here.
Although there is no property tax increase, the adopted budget does include fee increases for solid waste, storm water, and water services. Increases for the typical customer equate to: Solid Waste ($0.72 monthly increase), Storm Water ($0.43 monthly increase), and Water ($3.10 monthly increase).
“This is going to be the last budget I vote on but it will be the first budget I vote against,” said Braxton Winston. He added that the pay raises for city employees were “nominal” and won’t match inflation. “It’s going to be harder for people to live in this city this year.”
Council approved the budget in a 9-1 vote; Winston was the only dissenter and Ed Driggs was not present at the meeting.
Continue reading the full story here.
Workers spoke. Did Charlotte listen? City will give some a big boost in pay
Genna Contino, Monday, June 12, 2023, 9:04 pm EDT
Charlotte City Workers Union members marched from Marshall Park to the government center to demand 12% raises last month.
It may have worked: The city agreed to a compromise this month to an initially proposed 6% raise and gave its final OK Monday.
As part of Monday’s $3.3 billion Charlotte city budget adoption, minimum salaries for city employees jump from about $40,000 to $46,200. The city’s lowest-paid employees will see fruits of the agreement beginning in January. People higher on the pay scale, though, will see shallower increases.
Mayor Pro Tem Braxton Winston, who’s running for NC labor commissioner, was the sole opposing vote for the budget beginning July 1 and covering the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
“This is going to be the last budget I vote on, but it’s going to be the first budget I vote against,” Winston said. “There’s more that we could’ve done this year, more that we should’ve done this year.”
The budget drops property taxes to a revenue-neutral rate, 26.04 cents per $100 in valuation, which means the city won’t bring in more money from property taxes than economic growth provides. Last week, Mecklenburg commissioners voted to hike the county’s tax rate 1.6 cents above revenue neutral for the upcoming fiscal year.
Councilwoman LaWana Mayfield supported the budget, but said she explored options with the city manager for a one-cent increase.
“What is that going to do for services when we still have almost 100 people a day moving to the city?” Mayfield said. “We worked hard on (the budget) and yes we can do better.”
City Manager Marcus Jones warned the council in May that future tax increases will come if the city wants to keep up its level of services and initiatives.
Each employee will receive at least a $3,600 per year pay increase in fiscal year 2024 under the new city budget, which includes adjustments for all full-time hourly employees.
The budget also includes pay for on-call Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers and maintains historical pay parity between police and firefighters — something fire employees requested during a public hearing.
Continue reading the full story here.