Chapel Hill Town Council Receives Recommended Budget

With a lot of market uncertainty, Chapel Hill town manager Roger Stancil said his staff took a conservative approach to the town’s 2016-2017 fiscal budget.

“I’ve heard from different sources, different economics that although we might have a weak recovery, it’s perfectly feasible to think that within another year we could have the beginning of another recession,” he said.

Stancil presented a budget that was balanced, featured no tax increases and no increases in stormwater fees.

It also includes an almost $100,000 increase for affordable housing and human service agency funding.

“There is a 19 percent increase in funding for performance agreements and human services,” Stancil said. “Throughout the recession this town did not decrease funding for non-profits and human service agencies.”

He said Chapel Hill was unique in this way because many towns cut related funding in order to balance their budgets.

Nearly one million dollars has been put aside to purchase new buses for the Chapel Hill Transit system.

Overall the system will get a 1.9 percent decrease due to what Stancil called an unexpected receipt of $934,000 in state grants. The transit system is currently trying to replace 42 of its older buses.

“There’s still many more buses to replace,” he said. “Still conversation to have about what those buses should be, what technology should be used for those buses, how much it will cost the town.”

Stancil said the town learned from Winter Storm Jonas, which iced roads and caused school and work cancellations.

The budget will include an additional $30,000 for improved communications and staffing deployment during storm events.

“We’d put out information and we’d immediately get interactive communication with people who live in the community,” Stancil said. “We could say ‘we’re going to be on your street tomorrow’ and we’d get a tweet or a message back saying ‘when are you going to be at my house.'”

Stancil said the increase in staffing should help the town communicate better during these kinds of weather events.

The town also has multiple unfunded projects that the council could act on, should they decide to.

Those projects could include a possible development on the American Legion property and 415 W. Franklin St.

The council will hold four work sessions before approving the budget June 13.

Chapel Hill Town Council Receives Recommended Budget

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