The Greensboro City Council passed City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba’s recommended 2022-2023 budget of $689 million at the Tuesday, June 21 meeting with few changes and with little discussion of the need for the massive increase in spending.
In 2021, the City Council passed the 2021-2022 budget of $619 million, which had no tax increase. The 2022-2023 budget increases spending by $70 million, and the tax rate of 63.25 cents is an increase of 8.69 cents over the revenue neutral rate of 54.56 cents.
According to the city staff’s report, the average property owner will pay about 30 percent more in city property taxes.
Before the 7-2 vote to approve the budget, with Mayor Nancy Vaughan and District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling voting no, city councilmembers in favor of the budget talked a lot about how the additional spending was necessary to increase city employee compensation.
However, according to the manager’s recommended budget on the City of Greensboro website, the budget for “personnel costs” increased by $19 million and that included 61 additional employees.
The bulk of the $70 million in increased spending is in the maintenance and operations budget, which increased $45 million from $328 million in the current budget to $373 million in the 2022-2023 budget, which goes into effect on July 1, 2022.
There was very little discussion or explanation of why maintaining and operating the city government in 2022-2023 was projected to cost $45 million more than it cost in 2021-2022.
Capital Outlay in the 2022-2023 budget was actually reduced from $25.8 million in 2021-2022 to $24.8 million in 2022-2023.
While the City Council made few changes to the manager’s recommended 2022-2023 budget, it did reduce the proposed budget for the Greensboro Police Department by $960,000, removing eight additional police officers that the manager had recommended.
The other changes were mainly accounting maneuvers to reduce the proposed tax rate from 66.25 cents to 63.25 cents.
The City Council did add allocations of $75,000 each for three non-profit organizations the Greensboro Business League, Magnolia House and the Forge.
Adding that $225,000 in spending to the budget passed by a 9-0 vote.
Greensboro is rated 27th in the country for operations efficiency according to a recent news blurb. I’m certain there will be those that want to tout that as an accomplishment but I find it sinful and ridiculous. Durham was 10th by the way. $45.000.000 in additional expenses for the same services, or lack there of, is outrageous. Additionally, not one Council member stepped up to support our Police. They languish with last year’s numbers and increasing crime numbers.
You simply cannot ignore the lack of leadership exemplified by our City Leaders.
I for one will remember this when next months election comes around.
So the police budget has X amount of dollars allocated for 684 sworn officers. However, it is missing about 120 of those officers. Just those lapsed salaries are worth about 6 million, not to mention benefits and equipment. What’s the city going to do, other than pay overtime, with all those millions of unspent dollars that they just budgeted for?
The answer it seem is: whatever they want, as long as it does not include helping the police. Council, you might as well reduce the staffing at GPD and give me my tax money back for those spots that you knew going into this would remain unfilled. Maybe with the rebate, I can afford to buy a gun to defend myself since you won’t let the police do it.
Any officer or firefighter that was considering coming here just watched Greensboro authorize 7% raises while Winston authorized 14% on the very same night. Way to go Greensboro. Undercut the neighboring market at time when everyone is desperate to hire police and fire.
Sketchy politics AND less pay…. That should reel them in.
Dumba$$es.
In another article Marikay defended her support of the police department. 14%!!!! For Winston!! And a real take home car. Not a five year program to get to a possible take home car program. I know educated officers that have tried to figure out through the budget and ridiculous slide shows what their raise will actually be between now and May 2023 and they cannot figure it out. Hey city manager put it out it a manner that the officers can understand what their pay is going to be. Especially those who live in Greensboro so they can determine if they can pay their new outrageous property taxes.
Yeah, it sure is easy to say you support the police. It’s a little harder to actually support them with more than words. Marykay, I know you do like the police, but are you actually helping Greensboro find and keep good police officers? Based on the hokum you guys just passed compared to what Winston and other cities passed on the very same night, we all have to say, “NO”. You are not making things better when other cities are simply outbidding you at every turn.
And, like I said above, you knew going into this budget that the police were missing over 100 officers. Let the chief use that unused payroll money to buy cars. It is literally not costing you anything extra. Otherwise, I want a bit of a refund since the police won’t be able to spend it….but I’m sure you guys will.
During difficult financial times, regular families have to cut back on their spending. I remember as a kid in the 1950s and 60s getting one “large” gift for Christmas, such as a doll, and our stockings being filled with ribbon candy, an orange, and walnuts. Reading Little House on the Prarie recounts the girls getting a pair of mittens their mom made them and stockings filled with fruit and hard candy. One Christmas during the 1990 recession my Christmas gift to my family was a “fancy scroll” with magazine photos and pictures of things I would have bought them if I’d had the finances to do so.
We’ve wanted to build a garage for our business so my husband could letter vehicles here instead of having to go to them and letter outside as he’s done for over 40 years but we can’t afford the equipment he needs to make the lettering AND build a garage, so he packs his stuff up every day and goes to the job. We’ve wanted to see Pearl Harbor and Normandy, and I want to visit friends in Nova Scotia and PEI, but we can’t afford the trips or time away from work. I’d love to have some major landscaping done around our place as we’ve been working on it ourselves for 30 years and it’s harder to do as we get older but financially it takes budgeting and time so some of it may never get done. I’d love someone to clean my house every week, cook for me every night, and a massage weekly in my home. I can’t afford those things unless I went into massive debt. So I just don’t have those things.
Taxpayers are doing without but will now be asked to come up with more money to pay taxes to the City, the County, AND the Federal Government for WANTS, not needs. We need fire, police, trash, basic education, streets, and water services. We DON’T NEED trails refurbished and repaved, parks rehabbed, bike lanes, sidewalks on both sides of the street, charitable contributions to special interests with no accountability, food programs for people who receive state food assistance, money for programs that only research, data gathering, or administrative in scope, and we don’t need to fund any incentives for a corporation coming to our area that promises jobs for any person. When there is a recession, when people have no money, when there are hard times financially, the politicians in charge need to CUT BACK ON THEIR WANTS and LIMIT their budget to their NEEDS. These outrageous budgets are challenged by taxpayers with reasonable brains, there just aren’t enough of us.
Well said
Right! We HAVE to cut back, why can’t they?
Biden sez this is your fault. The self employed small business owners and entrepreneurs! That’s how out of touch he and his supporters are!
Allow me to set the stage before voting on the budget. Vaughn and Outling want the budget to pass but they cannot vote for the budget in fear of the upcoming election. So, head counting begins. If the two vote “no” for show, will the budget pass? Answer, yes. Good, Vaughn and Outling vote “no” for appearance’s sake. Residents of Greensboro, please do not be fooled by the politics of the city council. Vote for write-in candidate Chris Meadows for mayor to try and save Greensboro from itself.
The mayor’s race is a referendum on Nancy Vaughan. If you want to see four more years of her as mayor then vote for her or vote for Meadows. If you don’t want that vote for Outling. But nobody can look at any past election in the city and convince themselves a write-in candidate can win this election. A vote for Meadows is just a vote for Vaughan. Plain and simple.
When was the last city election that had a write-in candidate? Are you saying that the people who vote for write-in candidate Chris Meadows would have voted for Outling otherwise? I think the people who will vote for write-in candidate, Chris Meadows, would have stayed home if Meadows had not entered the race.
Did Yvonne and her family not get any additional tax-payer funds as they usually do?
Yvonne Johnson will always get taxpayer funds as long as Nancy Vaughn is mayor. Vote for the write-in candidate, Chris Meadows. This is a chance to make a real difference for Greensboro. Please do not miss this opportunity.
Exactly Term Limits, that is how it is done in the Council hallways. They knew it would pass. Neither one has put in speech or on paper what they would do for GPD to make them competitive. As predicted while the city of Greensboro treads water and puts raises out to next year, other municipalities are doubling the raise percentages.
The late economist, Murray Rothbard remarked, “Government is criminal enterprise, writ large.” And meanwhile, Leviathan keeps growing and consuming everything in it’s wake!