HOPE — Enough financial red flags have emerged to persuade the Hope Town Council to keep salaries on the conservative side next year.
The five-member council at a Tuesday meeting refused to support an original proposal to let supervisors recommend whether a subordinate deserves a 2% or 3% salary hike — and have the council make the final decision.
Instead, there was a unanimous vote to provide an across-the-board 2% salary increase next year.
Council members are being cautious after receiving some discouraging financial news last month, councilman Clyde Compton said.
He cited the announcement that the town’s portion of the county’s local income tax specifically earmarked for public safety is expected to drop to $14,500. That 40.5% lower than the current level.
In addition, cigarette tax revenue is expected to be cut in half next year, while funds acquired through the motor vehicle highway tax are expected to drop by 12.6%, Compton said.
In addition, there are still bad feelings among many Hope residents regarding large increases in water and sewage bills, as well as for mandatory trash pickup, council member Ed Johnson said.
Johnson and his wife, Barb Johnson, are retirees who will individually get a minimal increase in Social Security payments next year.
“We’re on a fixed income, and I don’t want my taxes to go up anymore,” Johnson said.
The difference between 2% and 3% raises is larger than most people realize, Compton said.
Taxpayers would be paying $2,092 more a year just to provide a 3% raise to exempt employees such as clerk-treasurer, town manager, marshal and utility superintendent when compared to a 2% pay hike, the councilman said. The town manager position is now vacant.
That figure does not include raises for most municipal employees who work on an hourly basis, Compton said.
“It’s going to get to the point of saturation where we only have so much money,” Compton said. “One of these days, we’ll have to start laying employees off because we’ve raised the minimum salary so high.”
Although Compton used amounts calculated by clerk-treasurer Diane Burton and town marshal Matt Tallent to make his comparison, the salaries for those two positions won’t be set by the council until January, Burton said.
Also on Tuesday, the council gave their final approval to a 2020 budget with total revenue of $1,325,551. That’s an increase of 3.2% or $41,201 above what was budgeted for this year.
The town’s general fund budget is now set at $543,077, which is 4.3% higher than this year, Burton said.
While the town will be requesting the maximum tax levy, that will result in only an additional $10,887 being raised.
“The net tax rate on each $100 of taxable property will just go from .9453 to .9573,” Burton said.
To put that in perspective, a Hope resident with a $50,000 home will pay only an additional $6 a year, according to the county auditor’s office.
