By ELENA MARSH
Insider Staff Writer
Preparing for the future sometimes means looking back on the past. Recently, Moore County officials have taken that lesson to heart to prepare for next year’s budget season once the holidays have passed.
Commissioners Chairman Nick Picerno, along with county staff, reviewed the goals and objectives for the various county task forces and identified several accomplishments in 2024 that aligned with those goals.
The board established eight task forces, equipped with two commissioners each, to focus on some of the most important issues affecting Moore County.
The task force subjects include budget; economy; homeless and community outreach; land use and Unified Development Ordinance; law enforcement and veterans; opioids; solid waste; and water and sewer.
This budget year, the budget task force lowered the tax rate from 0.33 cents to 0.31 cents per $100 property value. It did that principally by setting aside $4.4 million in surplus revenue last budget year. The money was moved into this year’s spending plan to help accomplish the two-cent reduction.
Originally, the county included just $1.4 million in surplus revenue to make possible a one-cent cut, a plan which was proposed on May 21. This left about $2.9 million to set aside into the county’s reserves.
In order to lower the tax rate one more cent, the county decided to move $2.2 million forward into the 2024-25 budget. The commissioners acknowledged that the excess of $4.4 million from the 2023 fiscal year showed that there was room to lower the tax rate further.
The commissioners have a similar idea going into the next fiscal year after announcing that they have set aside $3.6 million, with the goal of cutting the tax rate another penny and a half.
In the same vein, commissioners announced $500,000 in the committed fund balance as of June 30 for a tax revaluation that is coming up in a few years.
“It’s good news for the taxpayers of Moore County,” said Picerno at the county commissioners Nov. 6 meeting.
The county also allocated a little over $1 million from sales tax to go toward covering the school district’s capital project debt payments next year, thereby not requiring a higher property tax for next fiscal year.
Contact Elena Marsh at (910) 693-2484 or elena@thepilot.com
