SALISBURY — The Salisbury City Council voted to approve the recommended budget on Tuesday without any changes, holding the tax rate steady and implementing stormwater, water and sewer and development fee increases.

The budget keeps the city’s property tax rate at $0.665 per $100 of valuation and the downtown rate at $0.156.

The City Council also approved an updated recommended fee schedule, with the changes to stormwater and water and sewer rates being the most far-reaching changes. Stormwater fees would see a 10-percent increase, while water and sewer rates would increase four percent. Finance Director Wade Furches estimated that the average household would see a monthly increase of $3.14.

The budget also implements a new convenience fee for all departments of three-percent on all debit and credit card charges over $1,000.

The development and planning departments also saw new fees and several increases, most of which add fees for services such as annexation applications and inspections. Furches said that these changes would be delayed until Oct. 1 so that developers had “enough notice in advance.”

While there are no changes to waste fees in the budget, the waste collection budget holds one of the larger changes as the city looks to bring recycling services in house. Currently, the city is served by Republic Services, and the budget renews that contract for one year.

The budget includes the funding of two new employees for three months so that they can begin onboarding and learning routes and other issues from the current provider as well as $845,000 in start-up costs for the purchase of equipment and bins.

Other notable pieces of the budget include:

• A five percent average compensation increase for employees, consisting of a two-percent cost of living adjustment and an average merit increase of three percent. The budgeted amount for the increase is $1,745,286.
• Budgeted new positions including two new police officers, a fire inspector, a recreation programmer for Parks and Recreation and a paralegal to work with the city attorney.
• The combination of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Communications departments into the Community Engagement Department headed by DEI Director Anne Little and the changing of the Downtown Development Department to the Economic Development Department.
• One-time expenditures including the demolition of the Fisher Street bridge at $750,000, repair of city-owned roofs and HVAC systems at $211,644, the Grants Creek Greenway project at $322,563 and the Old Concord Road and Brenner Avenue sidewalk projects at $334,588.

For the third time, discussions and presentations on the budget focused on the fire department, with City Manager Jim Greene Jr. taking the opportunity to “clear up misconceptions” and to provide the City Council with requested information about the compensation opportunities for firefighters.

One thing Greene pointed out was that his office asked all of the city departments, including the fire department, to budget a 10-percent cut to their discretionary funds, not their total budgets. The discretionary funds are used by the departments for supplies, training and other smaller payments, meaning the cuts did not affect staffing or services.

“We told you early on that we asked departments to make a 10 percent cut in their discretionary fund. That’s not a 10-percent cut overall. In fact, the total fire department has increased by 6.7 percent (from $10,328,106 to $11,078,390). The majority of that is in payroll,” said Furches.

Furches and Greene also pointed to the incentives Salisbury offers for certifications and degrees, meaning that while “starting salaries for firefighters might not be as much as other local municipalities, but those other municipalities might not have these” incentive options, said Furches.

The presentation came after representatives of the firefighter’s union and supporters spoke at the public hearing two weeks prior to ask the City Council to consider independently funding the six firefighter positions that are included in Greene’s recommended budget. While those positions are funded in the budget, it is only through a FEMA Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant, with Greene saying that there is no plan B if the city does not receive the grant.

One of the primary issues raised by the union was the amount of overtime the firefighters were working, with the city expecting to spend a total of $812,000 in overtime pay for the current fiscal year, an increase of approximately $250,000 over the prior year and more than triple the expected $335,000.

“At some point, (overtime) becomes blood money, you really get tired of it and the reason why you’re doing that extra overtime is because you are under-manned. You don’t have enough people to fill those positions or somebody’s out sick or needed medical leave, things of that sort. We have a recommendation for six additional firefighters, but it’s only based off a grant, that’s what concerned and bothered me,” said Mayor Pro Tem Harry McLaughlin, referring to his time in the Secret Service as a comparison.

Greene said that the administration agreed and understood that the overtime was an issue, adding that he approved the department’s overhire program for that issue. Greene added that he viewed this as an opportunity to rethink the scheduling process and how the public safety departments provided service. One option Greene pointed to that could be explored was no longer responding to medical calls with a fire truck and three or four personnel automatically, instead responding with a medical vehicle, such as an ambulance, and two personnel.

“We’re going to continue to grow, and I think it’s time that we sit back and look at our fire services and what are our schedules and how we’re providing service and really use the data. We’ve talked about the 9,000 (annual) calls, but how many are medical and how many are fire calls? I would say we could even get an outside expert to help us review that and provide some options. That’s not in the budget, but if council wants to continue to evaluate our services, I think there’s a real opportunity there,” said Greene.

The total budget represented a 1.8-percent decrease from the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year budget, something Council Member David Post said worried him.

“We had the situation with water three or four years ago, where we decided not to raise water rates, and then the next year we had to go up 10 percent to catch up. I’m a little nervous about our budget being lowered this year,” said Post

The reason for the total decrease is uncertainty in the revenue streams for the upcoming fiscal year, with some of the larger unknowns being how tariffs and other changes will affect sales tax, as well as how the federal government’s sweeping changes to priorities and spending will affect grant opportunities for the city.

Both Greene and Furchess said that city staff would need to keep a close eye on the budget throughout the year as revenue projections changed.

Following the presentation and discussion, the members of the City Council voted unanimously to approve the recommended budget.