Chowan County cuts jobs, raises taxes

By Connie Sage

After meeting for six hours, Chowan County commissioners on their 10th vote reached a compromise budget agreement early Tuesday morning that calls for a 3-1/2-cent property tax rate hike.

The town's library likely will close one day a week, funding for home-delivered meals to shut-ins will be halved, the state will be asked to take over maintenance of Edenton's 1767 courthouse, the building housing the county manager and his staff will be closed, and some summer recreation programs are expected to be dropped.

Commissioners spent several hours voting on proposals that would have restored some cuts, including those for schools.

After multiple unsuccessful votes calling for tax rate hikes ranging from 2-1/2 to 10 cents, an exasperated county Chairman Eddy Goodwin told commissioners just before midnight Monday that he was "fed up" with the panel's inability to agree and that they would not adjourn until a decision was reached.

"We can not raise enough taxes to solve the problems in Chowan County," Goodwin said. "We've got to do something."

Goodwin, Keith Nixon, Emmett Winborne and Kenny Goodwin repeatedly voted on budget options that would keep the tax rate low, even at the expense of jobs and services.

Commissioners Jimmy Alligood, Louis Belfield and Ralph Cole called for higher taxes to save jobs and prevent further reduction in services.

Alligood, who at one point proposed boosting the tax rate by 10 cents, said the county would be going backward if services were chopped and it would "take years to get them back."

The county had two choices to close a $3.5 million budget gap for the next fiscal year, which takes effect July 1. After learning last summer that its $20 million in reserves were all but wiped out, commissioners were faced with raising taxes or cutting services and personnel.

They chose to do both.

The Public Safety Department and its Emergency Management Coordination program were eliminated, along with one Animal Control job. Both are jointly paid for by the town and county.

All county employees will have a 37-1/2-hour work week, which replaces a two-day monthly furlough that was mandated because of this year's fiscal problems.

Edenton and Chowan County residents will pay an additional $3.50 a month for trash disposal at convenience sites or landfills.

As part of the new $15,327,343 budget, county residents now will pay 68-1/2 cents per $100 assessed valuation and town residents will pay 97-1/2 cents.

Solid waste disposal, which had been $12 per household for county residents and $10 in town, will be $15.50 and $13.50, respectively.