In Chapel Hill, elected officials are getting closer to finalizing next year’s budget. But several outstanding issues remain, notably an urgent funding request from the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service to support their two homeless shelters.
“The total proposed budget is nearly $128 million, with the general fund accounting for roughly $76.5 million,” Town Manager Maurice Jones told the Town Council last week. “That’s an 8.9 percent increase from the current fiscal year.”
Watch last week’s Town Council meeting.
Jones’ budget proposal includes a 51.9-cent property tax rate – a half-cent increase from the current rate, to pay for additional transit expenditures. Even that increase wouldn’t cover Chapel Hill Transit’s entire budget request; some Town Council members have expressed interest in adding an additional 0.3 cents to the tax rate to cover the difference.
Beyond transit, one of the most pressing unresolved issues is a request from the IFC for an interlocal agreement with Carrboro and Orange County, to provide a combined $650,000 in additional funding to operate its two homeless shelters, HomeStart and Community House.
Speaking last week, Jones said he didn’t think the council would have enough time to decide on that for this budget cycle.
“We don’t believe we’ll be able to decide on an interlocal agreement before the Council breaks for the summer,” he said. “So we’ll have to come back in the fall to continue that discussion.”
But IFC president Jackie Jenks urged the Council to include the money in the budget anyway.
“The work of these two shelters, the everyday (practice) of walking with people through their experiences of homelessness, is life or death work,” Jenks said. “People are literally dying outside in our community – yes, in our community, and in other communities across the country, from the effects of homelessness.”
The IFC’s request seems to have a lot of support from Council members – particularly Council Member Camille Berry, who shared her own personal experience in an emotional speech to the Council last week.
“PTSD is a real thing,” she said. “You never know when it could be you (experiencing homelessness). And if it had not been for the resources that this town provides, this community as a whole, and the people who live in this community, including a wonderful family who opened their doors to my family, and IFC, who I went to on numerous occasions, I would not be here. I would not have this opportunity to talk to you.
“It is urgent,” Berry continued. “It is life or death. And sometimes the ‘life’ is not the physical one, but the spiritual one. And so I do implore my colleagues to fund this now.”
If the Town Council decided to include the funding in this year’s budget, it’s not yet clear where the money would come from. Council Member Amy Ryan and others expressed some support for taking that additional 0.3-cent tax hike that was slated to go to transportation funding and devote it to the IFC instead. Council Member Adam Searing said he’d prefer to avoid the additional tax increase together, and find the money for the IFC through cuts in other places.
That discussion will continue at a virtual work session Wednesday night at 6:30. One way or the other, though, Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger expressed confidence last week that the Council will find a way to reach a solution.
“I think we can find a way to make this work,” she said. “If people are suffering – and that’s our value system, to take care of people – then we need to do that.”
Read the full agenda for Wednesday night’s meeting.
The Town Council is currently scheduled to approve a final budget on June 8.
Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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