East Spencer planning 2025-26 budget retreat

Published 12:05 am Friday, January 31, 2025

EAST SPENCER — The town’s board of aldermen and leadership are again planning for the annual budget retreat.

This year’s retreat, where the town’s board and department heads will meet to discuss upcoming goals for the 2025-26 budget season, will be held in Kannapolis on Feb. 19-20 at Kannapolis City hall on Laureate Way.

“As we are moving into 2025, we need to begin to think about and plan for the 25-26 budget year,” Town Manager Michael Douglas noted at the January board meeting.

Centralina Council of Governments will facilitate the two-day event and several speakers are on the agenda.

The retreat is open to residents who want to attend in order to learn about the plans the town is making or considering.

During the first day, Douglas will provide a short overview looking back at 2024 and ahead to 2025. Then, there will be brief presentations from department heads including fire, police, code enforcement, administration, public works and parks and recreation. Each department will review last year and look ahead to the coming year.

Finance Director Ashley McFarland will give a budget overview of fiscal year 2025 and talk about the financial impacts of new requests as well as implications for the tax rate.

There will be discussions of priorities for the budget both short-term and multi-year requests.

Each presentation will be followed by periods of discussion and/or question and answer sessions.

On day two, WithersRavenel, a civil and environmental engineering firm, will discuss the town’s capital improvement plan including the public infrastructure and plans for a new public safety complex.

The town has been working in 2023 and 2024 on new residential and commercial development as well as addressing blighted properties by either removal or rehabilitation. There have been discussions of a new town facility that would include town administration, public safety and the post office for several years and that project continues to be considered.

During his tenure, Douglas has procured a number of grants for the town for water and sewer lines, for improvements to Royal Giants Park and for sidewalks and street repairs among other projects, and McFarland will be seeking new sources of grant monies going forward once the priorities have been established for the coming year. There is also a goal of looking farther ahead and determining long range priorities including potential benefits of regionalization of some areas.