Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
WALLACE — It was a packed agenda, but members of the Wallace Town Council made short work of it in an hour-long meeting Thursday, with the highlight being the adoption of a budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The new budget commits the town to spending just over $11 million in the coming year, which begins July 1. The total represents almost a 3 percent increase from the previous year, according to Town Manager Rob Taylor.
Compiling the yearly budget is no quick and easy process, with the state laying out a schedule that towns need to follow. The first work begins on the budget in December, with department heads laying out their plans and needs for the coming year in budget requests. In March, those requests are reviewed during workshops with the town council and department heads, and in May a proposed budget is presented to the council and public for review and comment. The final part of that process is a public hearing, which was held on Thursday evening, and then the council votes the budget up or down. In this case, no one spoke during the public hearing, and the council unanimously approved the plan, with some minor last-minute adjustments, in just a few short minutes.
A property revaluation that was performed by the Duplin County Tax Office earlier this year made things a little easier, Taylor said.
“We have been waiting for the revaluation as it had been postponed for a couple of years,” he said. “We’ve been successfully juggling expenses to keep the Town’s property tax rate unchanged for the last eight years, but it has been increasingly difficult to keep pulling a rabbit out of the hat. We’ve seen increases in operating costs over the years like most folks and again, have done a good job absorbing those without touching the tax rate.”
The new tax rate adopted with the budget represents a decrease from 62 cents to 53 cents per $100 valuation, or about a 15% rate decrease. However, the value of properties have increased significantly, with some residential properties increasing from 25-100% in value, and commercial property values increasing by an average of 25%. The total assessed value of properties in Wallace stands at just over $336 million.
Still, property tax bills will be higher this coming year, Taylor said. To have kept the budget “revenue neutral” the tax rate would have been set at 45.6 cents per $100 valuation.
“Even if the evaluation hadn’t happened this year, we were going to need to do something this year,” Taylor said. “While we did reduce the rate from the 62 cents to 53 cents — about a 14-15% reduction, folks are still going to see an increase in their property taxes based on the new valuations.”
Taylor remains optimistic that the rate will be able to held flat in the future due to increased residential and commercial development that is planned for the town. Hundreds of new homes and many new business plans have been approved and are set to begin construction soon.
The largest source of revenue for the town is property taxes, with an expected revenue of almost $1.8 million, followed by different levels of sales taxes which combine for another $1.1 million.
The largest expenditure for the town is personnel, taking up about 43% of the budget, and the most expensive department for the town is the police department, which claims about 40% of the budget through personnel, training, vehicle and equipment costs.
“I extend my sincere thanks to the department heads, budget committee, and Town staff for their dedication and thoughtful input,” Taylor said in his budget message. “I also thank the mayor and town council for their continued leadership and commitment to the success and well-being of Wallace.”
Police Chief Jimmy Crayton said he appreciated the efforts to get his department as much funding as possible.
“While no department receives everything it requests, the budgeting process provides an opportunity for us to communicate our priorities,” he said. “As department heads, we are committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and understand the importance of operating efficiently and transparently.”
The newly adopted budget is on the town website, wallacenc.gov, for review.
In other business, the council unanimously adopted several amendments to the town’s Code of Ordinances. The new amendments will give the town more ability to assess civil fines on property owners if they do not maintain their properties. Not only can the town fine an owner for failing to keep grass and weeds to a minimum, but they can also direct property owners to clean up trash and debris from their yards. Also, a new amendment was adopted that would make it a code violation to use a generator as a sole source of power when a natural disaster has not occurred.
Residents have complained about the noise from generators that run 24 hours a day, and one home even burned several months ago when a generator that was left running on a front porch malfunctioned.
“I’d like to stress that this is not in regard to the general use of a generator,” Mayor Jason Wells said. “This is only in the case when it’s the sole source of power at a home.”
Taylor explained that in most cases, property owners will be given a warning first, but if they do not clean things up, they will have the ability to levy increasing civil fines, as well as hire contractors to clean up the mess and send owners the bill for the work.
The council also unanimously adopted a new 5-year Economic Development Strategic Plan that was presented to the council in May, and approved a conditional zoning change to a portion of the Southpark Industrial Park on N.C. 11. The change was approved to allow for the construction of a new 50,000-square foot shell building, which economic development officials hope will attract a new industry to town in the future.
