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Separating Fact from Fiction in Finance
A perspective from Michael Parker
This year’s election in Chapel Hill is one of the most contentious and critical in recent memory. And unfortunately, it is shaping up as the least truthful – at least by some of the candidates – as well.
For example, one candidate for mayor has claimed over and over again that the current Council has grossly mismanaged the town’s finances and that we are spending too much on the wrong things. But does that claim hold up? It is certainly reasonable for Council members – and town residents – to differ about what the town’s priorities should be and how it funds should be spent. That’s why we have discussions at Council meetings and, ultimately, why we have elections. But there is a huge difference between disagreeing over priorities and outright financial mismanagement. So let’s look at the facts.
First, let’s look at how our debt is rated. A town’s ability to raise funds through debt is critical to carrying out important capital projects and its rating directly affects the interest it has to pay on that debt. Chapel Hill has an AAA rating for issuing debt, the highest rating possible. We are one of only 13 municipalities in North Carolina to have this excellent rating. This was confirmed by both Standard and Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s this past winter. We have had these ratings continuously from S&P since 2006 and from Moody’s since 1998.
Next let’s look at our operating results. For the fiscal year ended on June 30, 2022 (the last year for which we have audited results), the Town ran a surplus of $6.69 million – yes that’s million. We used some of these funds to support high priority needs. But in order to be fiscally prudent, we only allocated $4 million. The rest we put into our reserves, which serves as the Town’s “rainy day” fund. Among the “frivolous” uses were funds for vehicle replacements, facility maintenance, public safety radios, an EV garbage truck, new fire station design, and 140 West parking deck repairs.
This may appear to be financial mismanagement to some of our less-informed candidates – to me it looks like exemplary financial stewardship and sour grapes by a candidate that didn’t get their way.
The upcoming election is a critically important one, one that’s far too important to be decided by misrepresentations and outright falsehoods. Our residents deserve better than that. I hope that our residents will seek out the actual facts about the issues and vote accordingly.
Editor’s Note: Parker is an elected member of the Chapel Hill Town Council, who is serving his second term.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
