Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

And welcome to the 05/12/2026 meeting of the Carrboro Town Council. This is a budget work session. There will be no formal action and no public comment. It's good to see everyone here. I see some department heads and other town staff. We know this is the most important document for our community. And I just want to say ahead of the presentation how much I appreciate our town manager, assistant town manager, department heads, all those, because it took all of y'all to pull this document together. And I just thank you ahead of the presentation. Town Manager Toni.

Good evening, mayor and council. This evening, I present to you the manager's recommended budget for fiscal year beginning 07/01/2026 through 06/30/2027, and the town's five year capital improvement plan. The $44,000,000 recommended budget is balanced without a property tax increase, as we understand the goal of affordability for residents and businesses in this community. So, the budget reflects our commitment to affordability while navigating challenging economic conditions. And so, as many communities across the nation, we continue to face pressures of rising costs, workforce shortages, increased fuel costs, housing affordability challenges, and so forth.

We were also hit with a reduction in our property tax based on a tax loophole that property owners are using. And so that impacts our revenue capacity as we also experience increases and needs for expenditure increases. So even with these challenges, we are committed to maintaining the current tax rate. And we are doing some austerity measures throughout the FY27 to make sure we stay fiscally in line with where we need to be with our budget. And so, Darryl Keyes, he's our Deputy Finance Director.

He will go through the slides. After his main presentation, we've added a couple of other presentations and updates related to housing. We also will have an update on sustainability to repurpose some resources for energy efficiency mini grants. And then we'll hear an update around ADA and our compliance and what we look forward to doing in FY 'twenty seven for ADA compliance. And so, with that, I'll turn it over to Darryl, and after the presentations, we'll be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you, Matt. Town Manager Tony? Alright. Good evening, madam mayor and town council. Can you guys hear me? Alright. Alright. So before we discuss the recommended budget, I wanted to find what an annual budget is. The annual budget is our one year plan from June from July 1 to June 30. It tells a story of our revenue sources and how we fund services and programs.

It aligns with council's priorities. The budget must be balanced, meaning total revenues plus available fund balance equals total expenditures. In terms of timeline submissions, by law, the manager must submit a recommended budget by June 1, and council must adopt an annual budget no later than July 1. This slide shows a comparison between f y twenty six adopted budget and f y twenty seven recommended budget. The major drivers here are the general fund, special revenue fund, which includes tropical storm Chantal recovery projects and those projects are the vehicle replacement and capital project funds.

Overall, there's a decrease of about 29% for the upcoming year and that's due to our capital funds. Last year, we had one of the capital projects was the town hall renovations and that was approved at 15,000,000. There are no additional new funding for that project, so the budget, overall budget reduced significantly. The total budget for f y twenty seven, the recommended budget is $44,600,000 across all funds. This slide shows a breakdown of our recurring expenses, our not expenses, but revenue sources in the general fund.

Property taxes accounts for about 56% and local sales taxes accounts for 19%. The budget also includes fund balance appropriation and that represents about 8% of the general fund budget and the grand total of our general fund budget is $36,200,000 This slide shows some major revenue drivers. In this slide, there are some bad news and some good news. The bad news is the Blue Ridge loophole. That's has a negative impact on our property tax revenue.

We are projecting a decrease in our property tax base by $82,000,000. However, the good news is we are projecting modest local sales and use taxes and also growth in other recurring revenue streams such as fees and permits. As I said previously, this budget does include fund balance appropriation and that amount is $2,760,000 which includes one time tropical storm Chantal recovery expenses and annual recurring expenses in the general fund. This slide shows the general fund expenditures by category and a percent change between FY '26 adopted budget and FY '27 recommended budget. Personnel accounts for approximately 58% of the total budget And, as you can see on this slide, there's a slight increase of 2% and that accounts for some of the salary savings and I'll talk more about that in a few minutes.

Operations shows a decrease of 7% due to the removal of one time expenses that's included in this year's budget. Debt service shows a decrease of 2% and that's due to no new debt for FY '27 and our interest payments are decreasing year over year. Transportation includes a 15% increase and that's due to our contract with the town of Chapel Hill. That contract is increasing by $217,000. And, the last category is our transfers and that includes one time expenses for our parking fund and our tropical storm Chantal recovery capital projects.

Overall, there's a slight decrease of 1% when you compare the budget to FY '26 adopted budget. This slide shows a breakdown of expenditures by function and a comparison between FY '26 and FY '27 recommended budget. Different areas show decreases and increases. Our general government includes departments such as the town manager's office, finance, housing, HR, etcetera. There, on this slide, you see a decrease for planning, zoning, and inspections by 8%.

When we were developing the budget and having a discussion with the planning department, we all agreed to move the Department of Transportation administrative fees to the CIP. So, that reduced their operation budget significantly and that amount was between $304,100,000 that we moved over to the CIP. But, overall, this slide is showing a decrease of 1% in our general fund expenditure budget. This slide shows some major expenditure drivers by category and the first category is our personnel. This budget, this recommended budget includes a livable wage implementation and this is going to require us to make adjustments to our current pay plan.

Health care costs, as you all know, we received news on April 24 that our health care premiums premium was increasing by 50. And, that was a shocker to us. And, we had to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to cover the cost for our health care health insurance premium. This budget also includes a 2.5 cost of living adjustment for existing employees. In terms of our operations, this recommended budget allows us to continue current service levels.

Also, we were able to continue to provide free transit services to the community and we're also able to fund one time expenses for Tropical Storm Chantal such as leases, supplies, and equipment. Transfers, as I mentioned, include funding continuing to fund the parking fund so that we can provide free parking services to the community and a one time transfer for capital projects for Tropical Storm Chantal and that includes the vehicle replacement. Here are some of the strategies that were used to balance the budget. The manager is recommending freezing non essential vacant positions effective July 1. There are no new positions.

We'll be transferring our health insurance services to a new company to mitigate costs. In terms of our departmental budget requests, we restored most departmental budget requests to base budget. But, departments are still able to maintain the same service levels and programs to the community. Funding also includes one time expenses related to related to tropical storm shantel recovery and recurring expenses using fund balance appropriation. And, the last strategy was to debt finance several of our capital projects to minimize operating impact on the general fund.

This slide shows a four year trend of our fund balance. The green line here on this slide shows our unassigned fund balance as a percentage of the general fund expenditures. We also have a red bar that shows our restricted fund balance and that includes Powell bill and then we also have in the green bar shows our unassigned fund balance and essentially we can use that unassigned fund balance for essentially anything. But, for the red, we it's restricted to specific programs and services. I do want to point out on this slide between FY '23 and FY '24, you see that our unassigned fund balance was 4243% and that's above the town's fund balance policy.

And, in '24, that included ARPA enabled funding. But in '25 you see a significant decrease to 26%. And, that was due to reoccurring personnel expenses and one time capital expenses. As far as FY '26, we're projecting as far as our revenue collections in the general fund and our actuals and transfers, we're estimating and we're projecting to end to break even for the year. And, as a result, we expect our unassigned fund balance to remain the same at 26%, which will keep us at within the town's policy.

But that's contingent upon how we perform at year end and our audit report in the fall. So, we'll get that official number for the unassigned fund balance sometime in the fall after our audit is completed. Next, we'll move on to our capital improvement plan, also known as our CIP. Here's a high level summary of our recommended CIP. We have a total of 43 recommended projects for FY '27.

Our recommended funding for FY '27 is $5,100,000 and the impact to the general fund in FY '27 will be $1,700,000 Our estimated five year plan is $71,100,000 and our investment priorities include infrastructure and mobility, sustainability initiatives, ADA improvements, and storm water recovery and resilience. And, there's an appendix section in this PowerPoint that will list all the proposed capital projects, so you all will be able to look at those capital projects by department. This slide shows a breakdown of the projects by funding sources. As you can see, 35% will be federal funding, 34% general fund contribution, 30% debt financing, and 1% of a transfer from the storm water fund. This slide shows our proposed projects by various categories.

Our biggest expense here is our fleet and facilities and that includes the vehicle replacement. And, the next category is our sustainability initiatives and that includes Bowling Creek Phases 3 And 4. Here's a list of gas and electric vehicles and equipment. Here, we have for FY '27 budget a list of 13 gas vehicles and that's like for like for our FEMA reimbursement. We expect not expect, but we estimate $1,300,000 for FEMA reimbursement and the town contribution will be $1,100,000 We also have in our fleet electric vehicles and that we won't have FEMA reimbursement, so that would be a nocturnal contribution.

And that's seven electric vehicles, three for our planning department, and four for our public works department. On the operational costs, we have about $511,000 and that includes, as I mentioned in previous slides, supplies, leases, and equipment. And, the last section, our last point is the public works facility that includes design and that's estimated at $180,000 which brings us to a grand total of $2,200,000 Now, we will be hearing from planning or not planning, but housing sustainability and ADA updates.

Thank you, Ms. Case. Welcome, Ann Marie.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. In this presentation tonight, I'm going to give a brief update on our current year housing and human services activities, followed by a budget outlook for housing and human services. And I'll conclude with a report on strategies to support unsheltered homeless individuals in our community. So, for this fiscal year, highlights in affordable housing include our work on repairing and weatherizing naturally occurring affordable housing, Working through a $500,000 multi year grant to preserving home, 17 homes have been repaired and weatherized.

This work is very important. It helps our homeowners age in place, lowers their utility bills, and maintains their overall stability in the home. This year, in addition to those 17 homes, we're going to expand the project to the Rocky Brook manufactured home community. Moving on to Chantal Recovery, through two grants in the affordable housing fund that totaled $210,000 We were able to work with Habitat for Humanity to rehab eight severely damaged homes. For the first time this year, we participated in the longtime homeowner assistance program, which is a tax relief assistance program for the longest time lowest income homeowners in Orange County.

84 Carrboro households were assisted through a $45,000 contribution from the affordable housing fund that was matched by Orange County. And then finally, consultant has been selected for the affordable housing plan. That plan will allow us to prioritize strategies and also develop other strategies to maximize our current resources and pull in some different resources. And then it will create a five year roadmap for us to be able to increase the amount of affordable housing in Carrboro. The firm that we selected has some deep local experience.

The project manager that will be working with us has created plans for towns in the triangle, including the town of Chapel Hill. And they have also contracted with an MWBE organization that will ensure that our community engagement is equity centered and people focused and also very data driven. We should be kicking off that project in May or June. With human services, this year $458,000 was awarded to 39 agencies. The Housing and Human Services Advisory Commission was prioritizing food assistance programs in particular because at the time SNAP benefits were occurring, and so that was of a deep concern to the community.

After the first reporting period for these 39 agencies, they are meeting or exceeding their performance indicators. And then, finally, we're going to implement a software for grants management that will streamline our application and reporting processes, and it will also be a good tool to help us deepen our relationships with nonprofit agencies. Before we look at the budget outlook for this year, I wanted to just ground us in our two funding instruments that we have for housing and human services. For housing, we have the affordable housing special revenue fund, which is a dedicated source for affordable housing. And the main goal of that fund is to increase and preserve affordable housing.

We work through an application process that's competitive three times a year projects, and those projects are to preserve and to increase affordable housing. The fund also pays for recurring expenses and other agreements, such as the Partnership to End Homelessness. With human services, funding comes from the general fund. The goal of this program, which has been around for a very long time, I believe dating back to the '80s, is to improve the health, education, and economic outcomes for Carrboro residents. We have an annual grant application process that's very competitive, and funding goes to nonprofit agencies.

On this slide, what I wanted to do is look at the impact of increasing requests from our homelessness services that are being funded through the affordable housing fund. Primarily, what you can see here is that requests beginning in fiscal year twenty two up to our current year of requests has dramatically risen. Both agencies have their requests have increased over 300% over the years. Now, this is for good reason. With the Partnership in Homelessness, that is because we have been adding programs that have been very necessary, like SORAD, and also the Cold Weather Cots programs, among other things.

However, what that does is it reduces the amount available funds that we have every year to put towards increasing and preserving affordable housing. So, I wanted everyone to be aware of that dynamic that's there, and that is why we were initially discussing moving these expenses to human services. And so, is the outlook for FY27. You'll see that the affordable housing fund has a 2% decrease, which however, it has increased the amount of money that we do have for affordable housing projects from $327,000 to $338,000 The homelessness programs are included in the affordable housing fund again this year. But you'll notice that the amounts that we have between twenty six and twenty seven are actually reduced.

That's because late last week, we got some revised requests from the Partnership to End Homelessness as well as Community Home Trust. So, kind of decreased that helped us a little bit. The overall decrease in the Affordable Housing Fund is only 2%. Looking at human services, it's another story. We are looking at a 45% decrease in human services funding at a time when federal cuts will be ramping up.

And both residents and our nonprofit agencies will be facing extreme challenges. The Housing and Community Services Department has been working on a strategy to approach human services funding with this reduced number. What we really want to do is look at the data and the information that we have on the services and the programs that are being cut or eliminated, figure out how many Carbara residents are being affected, then look our look at the agencies that we have, the work that they do, the people that they're serving, and come up with a recommendation formula that will help us make sure that we serve as many Carbure residents in the areas of their most critical need. And we realize that this is a significant cut and it's going to make the job very difficult. So, if counsel wishes to add to that line, funding from the affordable housing fund could be transferred to Human Services this year.

Moving on to our report on strategies for homelessness, particularly unsheltered homelessness. The Orange County Low Barrier Housing Workgroup was started in 2025. It's a county led effort to identify new strategies that we can use to support our residents, particularly those who are unsheltered, meaning they are homeless but they are living in a tent or a car. And after working for a year, three main decisions have been made. The first one is to focus on permanent solutions rather than temporary solutions, which are costly and don't meet the end result.

And particularly with the limited amount of funding that we have right now, that is really the best course that we need to approach. The second is to prioritize permanent supportive housing, which is a housing program that pairs rental assistance with ongoing supports and resources for individuals with disabilities. And the county right now is looking at vacant properties in the area that they could lease to begin to increase PSH right away. The third strategy is to develop an encampment effort to reduce the number of encampments that we have and to place the folks who are in the encampments directly into housing. And for this, the county has just retained a consultant.

The consultant that they are contracting with is called Clutch Consulting Group. And what's different about them is their work is based on an emergency management model. They treat homelessness as a disaster. So, what they do is they do a surge of focus and resources, one encampment at a time, to directly house the individuals in there before they close a camp. And they've been able to do this within four to six weeks per encampment.

The five key pieces of this particular strategy are direct to housing, meaning that the people who are unsheltered go straight into permanent housing. They bring all the rehousing services on-site, so they have teams out there daily working with the people who are living there. They leverage public and private funding to increase the amount of resources that are available. They intensely focus on one encampment at a time. They do not move on until that encampment is closed.

And then after an encampment is closed, they work with the property owners and local government to ensure that that site stays closed. So their success rates in cities that they've been working in you can see up there in Dallas, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Houston has had a reduction in the unsheltered population from 24% to 43%. And in Raleigh, where they've had a pilot program for this, one of their largest encampments closed within three months and all 40 people found permanent housing. So, the next steps for this, as I said, we're just under contract. The county's just under contract with them.

So I don't have a lot of details at this time. However, we do intend to focus on two zones, what they call zones, in Carrboro and in Chapel Hill, where we are focused on unsheltered residents with complex needs. And within Carrboro, the zone that we're looking at are current encampment sites as well as pockets in the downtown area. In June, we will have a two day intensive workshop with a small core leadership team to begin to develop the overall strategy. And the county has already dedicated funds to this particular piece of the effort.

From there, the work would include preparing for the initial launch of this effort. It takes about four months to get everything pulled together, get the teams pulled together, the resources. And then they will unroll the strategy on one encampment as a test site, and then do some fine tuning. If things aren't moving along fast enough, we'll go back to the drawing board and see what needs to be done to get it moving forward. And that is the end of my presentation.

Thank you very much. Yes. Welcome, Ms. Amy.

Good evening, madam mayor, members of town council, town manager Tony, Amy Armbruster, town manager's office. I'm excited to share with you some new climate action initiatives that we plan to kick off this summer.

Excuse me.

We received an Orange County Climate Action Fund grant. We were inspired by the community ambassador programs we learned about at the All America Cities competition to pilot a similar program here in Carrboro. We call it energy connectors. The program will increase grassroots, roots out, reach to low income communities of color in Carrboro that are often hit first and worst by the impacts of climate change, but are often harder to reach with traditional communications and engagement. Energy connectors will act as boots on the ground to help neighbors access programs that will help them lower their utility bills while also reducing community greenhouse gas emissions.

Thanks to this grant, we'll be able to recruit and resource trusted community members to help reach out to their contacts in the community, and we'll be able to pay them a stipend for their work. Their goal will be to directly reduce the cost of living for low to moderate income residents in Carbrough by making their homes healthier, safer, and more energy efficient. But beyond just sharing info, these community excuse me, these energy connectors will act as consultants. They'll listen to their community, they'll gather insights, and they'll share their feedback with us to ensure that this program actually works for the people it's meant to serve. In this case, low income BIPOC residents who live in the qualified census tract downtown in the Lloyd Broad section of North Side, Tintop, and on Rogers Road in the Rina area.

The Energy Connector pilot will enhance the program I'm excited to share with you next, and it will also inform grassroots outreach for other town initiatives. I'm excited to introduce two new revenue neutral initiatives that simultaneously address energy burden in our community and will accelerate progress towards our ambitious climate action goals. We'll do this by repurposing the energy efficiency revolving loan fund. The challenge. The Carbrow Connects comprehensive plan sets out bold and ambitious climate goals to reduce our community greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030.

As we've mentioned in this chamber before, we are significantly off track to meet these goals. At the same time as we've heard tonight, some of our residents are already finding it hard to make ends meet. That's even before Duke Energy, Enbridge, and Owasa are set to raise their rates. Duke Energy since 2020 has raised their rates 20%, and they are now asking for an additional 19% increase. Enbridge is requesting a 12% increase.

And this is going to hit our low and moderate income residents the hardest. Their aging homes may have deferred maintenance, and that means that their energy bills are much higher than average. These rising utility costs impact their financial stability and their ability to afford to stay in their homes. To make matters worse, climate change means more frequent and severe extreme weather, further increasing their energy costs just to maintain minimum comfort levels in heat waves such as what we experienced after tropical storm Chantal and this winter with winter storm Fern. We have an opportunity here.

The original energy efficiency revolving loan fund has been fully repaid by its initial small business borrowers. These funds have now sat dormant for many years. We now have the discretion to repurpose this $150 a $150,000 to launch two high impact energy focused programs that will provide direct financial relief while also reducing emissions. The Carbboro Connects comprehensive plan calls for increasing access to energy efficiency by providing subsidies to homeowners, and it also calls for initiatives to explore how renters and homeowners can receive the benefits of energy efficiency measures. We believe this serves the community better than the current energy efficiency revolving loan fund.

This grant funded low interest long term loans to small businesses for energy efficiency upgrades. This available capital represents a unique revenue neutral opportunity to launch new high impact initiatives that can provide direct financial relief to residents while also advancing our 2030 climate action goals. It reflects our two pillars of climate action and race and equity. In addition, the economic development department offers a loan program to businesses that could be used to accomplish the same aims as the original energy efficiency loans. We're proposing a two pronged strategy to utilize $100,000 to stand up a new program for low to moderate income homeowners called the mini Grant Program.

The goal of this program is to expand energy saving upgrades to low to moderate income homeowners, residents who earn between 80150% of the area median income, or AMI. These residents earn too much to qualify for traditional weatherization aid, but struggle to afford the upfront costs for energy efficiency upgrades or to take on more debt through loans. Building on our proven affordable housing weatherization model, we'll leverage local expertise with nonprofit partners in a three step process. First, through the grant from Orange County's Climate Action Grant Fund, we'll partner with Preserving Home, a local non profit, to conduct home energy assessments at no cost for 25 income qualified homeowners. Next, we'll assess these homes to identify high impact savings and carbon reduction.

And the mini grants will fund these upgrades that have the most bang for the buck. And lastly, our nonprofit partner will then install these energy saving upgrades, things like heat pumps and insulation. Next, we'll use $50,000 to directly lower utility bills for renters living in energy inefficient housing and paying disproportionately high energy costs. They don't have the power to make big upgrades to their apartment that will help them save on their energy bills. The comprehensive plan specifically prioritizes energy efficiency programs for renters.

Renters do not qualify for traditional weatherization assistance, but they make up a significant portion of Carrboro's population. This innovative technology pilot will work with nonprofit partners to replace very inefficient window AC units and old boilers with ultra efficient saddle heat pumps. This amazing technology has been successfully used in North in excuse me, New York City and Boston with great resident feedback. Saddle heat pumps both cool and heat a space and do it incredibly efficiently. For those energy efficiency nerds out there, some of these subtle heat pumps are 19.2 c r two.

They can operate down to very low temperatures and they're easier to install. They plug directly into a one twenty volt outlet. And they also allow residents to open and close the windows, which is really important. The mini grant and subtle heat pump pilot projects will prioritize low to moderate income and BIPOC residents. But residents who qualify for deep weatherization assistance through the Affordable Housing Fund, those making less than 80% AMI, will be referred to those existing programs.

Residents who make above 150% AMI will be connected to low interest loans and resources to help them navigate their energy saving home upgrades. Finally, this program will leverage staff expertise to help us reach our target populations in new ways. Aaron Kino, who's with us tonight, is our awesome climate and energy program manager. He comes to us from Advanced Energy, where he served as Duke Energy's home energy ask an expert. He also teaches building science and energy use analysis at Central Carolina Community College and is a resident Hirs Raider.

Aaron's been working on a program to add more information to our website, add more resources, and links to incentive programs to help people take advantage of that. We'll also be ramping up our engagement through energy education workshops. Our next workshop is scheduled with the refugee community partnership. Really excited about that. And we'll also be doing outreach at events such as Carrboro in Motion.

And finally, to tie it all together, our energy connector program will hire trusted long term residents with deep ties to their neighborhoods to help us reach our target groups and connect them with information about the mini grant pilot. In summary, repurposing the energy efficiency revolving loan fund to launch these two new program aligns with our town pillars and comprehensive plan. It closes the funding gap for low to moderate income residents who can't participate in weatherization assistance but may not be able to afford energy saving upgrades. It provides immediate energy burden relief while also lowering community carbon emissions. It reaches that tough to reach group of renters providing them assistance.

And because we're partnering with local nonprofits, it will support local workforce development and economic sustainability opportunities. Finally, it will provide a proof of concept that will help us to apply for additional grants and funding sources. And best of all, as you've heard, this is a difficult budget year. This program is revenue neutral.

Thank you, Ms. Amy. I appreciate that. And welcome. This is Behr. You're doing ADA transition plan. Okay.

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Fucci, members of town council, everyone here in the chambers, and those joining us online. My name is Berth Jose. I am a town planner in the planning, zoning, and inspections department, and I also serve as the town's ADA and title six coordinator.

Tonight, I'm here to provide an update on our ADA transition plan, one of the town's key efforts to ensure compliance with federal civil rights requirements. You may recall that council adopted the town's Title VI plan in 2024. The ADA transition plan builds on that work of ensuring nondiscrimination but focuses specifically on equal access for people with disabilities. My goal this evening is to explain what the ADA requires, how the transition plan helps us meet those requirements, and where we are in the process. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a landmark civil rights law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination.

The ADA is divided into five titles. Title II specifically applies to state and local governments and requires us to ensure equal access to programs and services, remove physical and communication barriers over time, and provide reasonable modifications when needed. In short, the ADA requires that people with disabilities can participate fully in public life. Under Title II, public entities with more than 50 employees must complete a self evaluation, which is an assessment of how accessible our programs, services, and facilities are today, and the ADA transition plan, which is a formal plan that identifies those barriers, outlines how and when they will be removed, and assigns responsibility for implementation. Accessibility includes both physical and digital access, as I mentioned earlier, but a recent US Department of Justice rule clarifies that websites, online forms, and digital documents must meet accessibility standards.

And for a town our size, we have a compliance deadline of meeting that by April 2028, which adds urgency to this work. So think of the transition plan as the town's roadmap for making Carrboro more inclusive, not only for people with disabilities, but also for older adults, parents with strollers, and anyone who may experience mobility or communication challenges at some point in their lives. An ADA transition plan includes eight major components, including designating an ADA coordinator, publishing a notice of rights and grievance procedures, evaluating program services and activities, assessing public facilities like sidewalks, buildings, parks, and more, developing a prioritization schedule for removing those barriers, adopting a plan, and then implementing, monitoring, and updating it every five years. Community engagement is also required under Title II of the ADA and should occur throughout the process, but as the arrow shows on this slide, it typically occurs with the last five components. Developing a comprehensive ADA transition plan typically takes more than a year and often involves consultant support.

We are completing as much as possible in house and bringing in consultants where specialized expertise or capacity is needed. Over the past year, our work has focused on building internal capacity, improving communication, and assessing town facilities. I have been serving as the town's ADA coordinator for the past year, responding to resident concerns and staff questions. We've also established an interdepartmental work group to help embed accessibility across town operations. We launched an ADA web page with our notice of rights, grievance procedures, and instructions for requesting reasonable modifications or auxiliary aids, such as American Sign Language interpretation or Braille translation for public meetings or events.

Max Randall in Public Works and I also completed in house accessibility assessments of all town parks, buildings, parking lots, greenways, and their associated site features, like benches, trash cans, signage, and even dog waste stations. And then lastly, because the remaining sidewalk and curb ramp inventory is extensive, we are contracting that portion out currently to ensure accuracy and timely completion. Communication or community engagement, as I said earlier, is a requirement, but it's also a core value of this process. Over the past several months, I've been building relationships with local disability and senior serving organizations, attending events, and sharing information about the project. We also launched a project page on Engage Carbara, our engagement platform, to keep the public informed about our progress and any opportunities for engagement.

You may have also seen the flyer on the slide promoting the public input survey, which asks residents about their experiences with accessibility in Carrboro and their priorities for barrier removal. The survey is opened through June 1, and we encourage everyone to participate. We've also conducted several accessibility audits with members of the local disability community and plan to continue these throughout the process. Looking ahead, our next steps include training staff on ADA service delivery requirements, working with departments to evaluate their program services and activities, completing the public right of way assessment of sidewalks and curb ramps, analyzing the public input and survey data, integrating all of those findings into the transition plan, and developing a prioritization schedule, and lastly, bringing the completed plan back to you for adoption towards the end of this calendar year. We'll continue to provide engagement opportunities, particularly during the right of way assessment and also before the plan is finalized.

This timeline positions us to begin implementation at the start of fiscal year twenty twenty eight budget cycle. In addition to developing the ADA transition plan, the town is also advancing several ADA related initiatives that improve accessibility through our day to day operations and also long term capital planning. The town's website refresh was completed with accessibility in mind, and communications staff are exploring digital accessibility tools to support compliance by 2028, hopefully sooner. Public Works continues daily maintenance, such as pothole repair and vegetation management that directly improves accessibility. The Planning Department and Public Works are also coordinating on long term transportation improvements, including upgrades near the Drakeford Library Complex.

I know that has been of interest to counsel and also members of our community. I can report that we do have some curb ramp and crosswalk improvements that will be completed by public works staff that will coincide with NCDOT's resurfacing of South Greensboro Street, hopefully this calendar year. And then we have identified additional improvements to that corridor that are under discussion with NCDOT currently. We also have several facility improvements on the horizon, future upgrades to recreation and parks facilities, and also future accessibility improvements at town hall. These are included in long term planning discussions like the ones we're having today and will likely appear also in upcoming CIP cycles.

Okay. So, what's happening next? Next Tuesday, May 19, we will have another budget review and public feedback. And, on June 2, we will have a public hearing and a motion to adopt FY '27 budget and CIP. Also, I want to mention that the budget document will be available online and there's a link to our the town's website.

And, we will also have a hard copy available here at town hall with the town clerk's office and at the Dreyfird Complex Building. And, it's not in my notes but I want to redirect you guys to the budget document just to provide just quick instructions on how to navigate through this thick document. So, if you go to the table of contents, this budget is divided into several sections and on the table of contents, you'll see the page numbers for those sections. They should be in bold. So, you know, if you're trying to get to, for instance, financial policies, you'll go to page 34.

But just to get more information about each section, if you go to page nine and let me know when you're ready. On page nine, it's just understanding the budget document. So, each section has a description and when you're on different sections, can go back to this page and just get an idea of what the section entails. And, on the next page, on page 10, we have our manager's message followed by our the town's two pillars, race and equity and sustainability. And then, on page 13 provides an executive summary of the annual budget.

And then, on page and if you go to page 131, that introduces you to the CIP. So, me know when you're on that page. It's a cover sheet of our CIP. And on page 132, that page provides a summary of our capital improvement plan followed by on page one thirty three a summary of FY '27 CIP and then on page one thirty four, actually not one thirty four, one thirty five provides you with a five year outlook of the CIP. And I want to mention one more section.

Our appendix section includes performance operational metrics and that's on page two thirty nine and on page two forty provides you with summary of the metrics. And then, on the next page, it's not numbered, but it provides you with measures by category and there's a list of measures and goals. And then one more section and that's our fee schedule and that's on page two forty one and that section provides you with a list of all the fee schedules by department. But if you guys have any questions, I'm here to answer your questions and along with staff members for the presentation. So thank you.

All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Keyes. And so the budget document will be available on our website and at town owned facilities. That's beginning tomorrow and for ten calendar days?

Yes. So, the public can come to town hall or one of the facilities to review the budget document. Okay.

And our meeting next week is a budget review and opportunity for public feedback. Yes. It's May 19. And then there's a public hearing on 06/02/2026. So two opportunities for the public to weigh in on the document.

Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Case?

Go ahead. Councilmember Nell. Well, perhaps a general question. I think the one thing that I am unclear on was a point that Anne Marie made and that I know has been the subject of some of your thinking in preparing this budget. Moving funding from the affordable housing fund to the human services line, what is the budgetary impact? Can you guys restate the thinking through the drafting process and what the budget impact would be if we were to go that route?

Yeah, that's a good question. Thank you, Councilmember Nell.

It would be taken from fund balance, which as of June 3025, it was $1,160,000

Yeah. So Councilmember Nao, the thinking is truly using affordable housing fund for affordable housing or very closely related expenditures. And so I didn't want the council to be thrown off by the time you're ready, that we've been drawing down expenditures against that account. So just to be clear, there are significant nonprofits and resources that are draining the fund. It probably costs $02 at least on the tax rate to effectively correct that.

So this just wasn't the year to try to make the move, to pull out really two entities, which is IFC and Partnership to End Homelessness, that's an expenditure against affordable housing. That just fit better in the general fund. And so, at some point, I would like to move them to the general fund, because that's where it makes sense. The community home trust makes sense in the affordable housing fund. The support that we offer long term property tax owners, homeowners for relief makes sense there.

So I would recommend that they stay there. And as we go through this next fiscal year, really start thinking through strategies on realigning. But in a tough budget year, it's just hard to make that shift. So that was the thinking.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

If I can just add, I think the distinction also with IFC and the partnership is that they are more programmatic based, whereas we'd like to see the affordable housing the original intent is to really just increase new housing and to preserve what we already have.

Thank you.

Is it like a direct response, Councilmember Palmer, on this issue?

Just a follow-up question on

Yeah, let's stay here. I have some thoughts that could come at any time in the next three weeks. I'm good for now.

Okay. Councilwoman Palmer.

Thank you. Forgive me if I missed this at one point, but it helps ground conversations like this one. You mentioned $02 on the tax rate. What is the current year equivalent of $01 on the tax rate?

It's about $370,000

Yes, dollars $370,000. Thank you. That's all.

So I guess I would jump in. I think I wanted Anne Marie for the human services, I guess it would be. Anne Marie, I think I'm remembering from the slide, basically, the funding we'll get there. I'll wait for you. Here we go.

Okay. So yes, so fiscal year 'twenty six, we're approving 474,869 recommended for fiscal year 'twenty seven, so minus 45. So are there strategies around just kind of because that's a pretty big shift you know, for being able to serve our nonprofits the way we have over the years, and just also realizing how critical that is in today's climate. And I'll just leave it at that. But did you say that there were some strategies that were being kind of tossed around there?

Yeah. We are working through the department level a few different scenarios. But really, they focus on the organizations who are providing the most critical needs, who also are serving a wide representation of Carrboro residents and a higher number. We will also be looking at organizations where there may be two or three who are providing similar services. So we're looking for duplication of services.

We are looking at performance of the agencies in terms of their reporting and reaching their performance indicators. But primarily, with a cut like this, we want to go for maximum impact for what we have. So we've done a few different scenarios. I will not lie. It's not easy. When we

I was just getting ready to say that cannot be easy.

When we line up our critical needs organizations, which we did today, we were still $100,000 over that. And that's not counting all the other agencies who do great work and who are also meeting improving incomes for education and economic benefit. It's not easy, but our goal is to present a few different scenarios to the Housing and Human Services Commission next week and have them work from that and see how they are reacting to those. What we don't want to do is a percentage across the board cut for all of those agencies. That makes no sense.

We are just going to have to prioritize. And overall, I think it's a good exercise for us to just to really begin to hone in on where does the town want to make most investment in nonprofits. Again, this is a really steep cut that's going to be very difficult. I would rather kind of ease into that. But again, I think it's a good exercise for us to see where the most impact can be made for Carrboro residents.

I understand. And thank you for that explanation. I just hear folks, not just here at the town of Carver, but other municipalities, just talking about how tough the budget year is going to be. And decisions are going to have to be made. So I appreciate you working on that. Thank you for the response.

Thank you. Any other questions for me while I'm standing here?

I don't have, but Council Member Frey does.

Yes. Thank you.

Anne Marie, could you give us a short update on progress to date with the affordable housing plan? I know that was an item that was in the budget last year. And now, see you said you believe you've got a provider?

Yes. We contracting with a firm called Camoine Associates.

We

should be having our kickoff meeting in May or June. And, as I said, they were they scored very high, but really what was appealing to us was that they had that deep local experience, particularly with the town of Chapel Hill, which I think is a good partner community to look at for us. Also, really, they are contracting with a MWBE firm for the engagement strategy that I think will be out of this world and perfect for Carrboro. It will be equity centered. It will be people focused.

And I think they are already thinking of some different unique ways to engage our community. So those two factors were really impressive.

Thank you. I think that's my only question for now. I'm certain I'm going to have some emails.

Yeah, of course. Anyone else?

I don't see anybody else here. Thank you very much. Councilmember Frey has a question for someone, maybe?

I have a few. Let's see if we can get them out in order. I have a question about the cost of living adjustment. Madam Manager, is that for you probably? Do you happen to have the budget impact of just the COLA increase by itself as separate from the other various nongovernmental

adjustments? Impact

would be around $250,000

Okay, thank you.

The cost of living adjustment, after we went through, made sure we had the right minimum amount bringing up the bottom, was a very minimal impact to the budget. And so that was something, I think, I was committed to doing for our lowest earning employees. And they're primarily in public works. And so it wasn't a huge hit to our budget.

Okay. Thank you. Then I think, Madam Manager, one more for you as I'm sort of organizing these in my head. I am certain that you are following the Blue Ridge tax loophole closely. You've given us some recent updates, but is there anything, any fresh news from the General Assembly that we should have?

The good news is if there's good news that we have affordable housing in Carrboro people say we don't have affordable housing I think they're going to require the owners to ensure that a percentage is indeed affordable. And so that was not in there before. And so if we can feel good about the percentage that is guaranteed and they have to prove it, that actually is a good thing. It still hurts our revenue. But if we can confirm we have affordable units in Carrboro, we'll take it as a win.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Frey. Can I just step in one second? As we talk about the Blue Ridge loophole, can somebody just briefly say what that is for the public and just for understanding? I was going to ask the person standing at the podium, but it can be whomever. We're talking about it. It's,

in layman's terms,

it's

simply private developers or owners of apartment complex have partnered with nonprofit entities so that they can get a tax break.

I thank you for that, town manager. We were talking about Nassen questions, so just wanted to get that out there about what it is.

If I can piggyback with clarity.

I have one note that maybe have helped to focus. So I just did a little back of the napkin. And so I want to make sure that this is roughly right. So by my math, that's just a little bit over $460,000 impact to our general fund. We are losing $460,000 because $82,000,000 in tax base has been removed, at least for now,

from our

tax base via this loophole. Okay.

And this is market rate affordable housing. So in theory, quite a bit of that is unverified at present.

That is right.

And in theory, quite a bit of it may well not stand up to verification.

You're exactly right.

So what's happening is corporate landlords are giving a nominal ownership stake to nonprofits, like 0.1% is permissible, to provide affordable housing in a way that is not verified. So that has cost Carver $460,000 It has cost Durham think like $12,000,000. I mean, Guilford, Mecklenburg well, thank you for that clarity. Come back I rest of to my comments when appropriate for comments.

Thank you, Councilmember Nell. I appreciate it. Councilmember Frey, did you have more?

I believe that's everything I have for Darrell. Are there other folks who have questions for him?

Do you have for Mr. Case?

I do. I just had

one And question from

maybe I missed it, but we were talking about the percentage of unassigned fund balance relative to the adopted budget. And I saw through '26, do we have a number for what that's projected for FY '27? Like, where would our percentage be for '27?

We don't have that amount. We will have that amount once the audit is completed. So, that would be in the fall. But, we're providing that projection for FY '26 just for you all to see where our unassigned fund balance would be in FY '26.

I

know this is a little bit confusing because this I want to keep it no, I want to no, want this slide to just be budget focused, but for the auditing purposes, this unassigned fund balance does include subsequent years, which is FY '27. So, when our auditors come in, they will include the fund balance appropriation in the audit report for this year. The $2,200,000 will be included in this unassigned fund balance.

I'll say, me and Darrell spent some time on this slide, and it is confusing. And, I agree. I think, to your question, Councilmember Merrill, yes, the FY '27 projected use of fund balance still keeps us within the town's fund balance policy percentage wise. The current year, we budgeted, we balanced using fund balance and did not need to spend it. So, we are intentional about, if we have to use fund balance as a balancing tool, which is not recommended, but we did do it to really look at our expenditures and try to make sure if we don't have to tap into it, we don't.

So I think we're still in very good standing as it relates to our policy and way above what the local government, LGC, requires, which is around 89%.

Yes.

Was that a hand up?

Council member I'm thinking about it. Town manager, thank you for that note. I'm trying to think about a good way to make this a little bit more legible to folks who are listening at home, because fund accounting is a dark art. So in other words, authorizing the fund balance appropriation says that in order to if we spent every single penny that we are saying that we will spend and we received every penny in revenue that we are projecting that we will spend, we would come up $2,761,000 short. And we would draw that from the unappropriated fund balance.

But in practice, that's not like we take that out on day one of the budget. So we get to the end of the year, and we say, Okay, now what did we actually spend and what did we actually receive? And both of those numbers will differ to some extent from what we budget, just like anyone's spending shifts a little bit from their budget. And everyone's income may shift a little bit from their budget. And then we're saying that up to 2.7 of that can be drawn if needed to cover it. And that last year, we expected to make a draw from the fund balance, and actually it increased a tiny tick rather than us reducing it. Is all? Did I get all that correct?

That is

absolutely perfect. I will say, though, current year, what saved us was insurance proceeds, that unintended revenue that we did not expect. So now, '27, we're committing to spend that towards storm recovery. So, this is why we did good for the current year, because we had additional revenue come in. But we definitely want to spend it for recovery efforts and still monitor expenditures so that we're not dipping into it.

So, it's just a balance. And the document is an adopted policy guide, and then me and Daryl were talking about the difference between budgeting and finance. So, is the actual reconciliation at the end of the year. So, yep. Yes. Thank you.

Any other questions for Darrell Keyes? Or any other presenter this evening or the town manager?

I have one comment, which is I'm really delighted by the idea that we saw presented for climate action that's both creative and an interesting way to get us further on the path towards our goals. I think I might have a question, but I think I'm going to put it in email. I don't think I have it all together.

Yeah, I do agree with Councilmember Frey. Ms. Samey, that was quite a jump off. I'm proud of you. Anyone else?

MATT: Madam Mayor, would you indulge a couple comments? Would you indulge a couple comments?

Oh, from you? Yeah. Let's go. Let's

do it. Well, am loathe to take our time for comments with a couple more meetings coming up. But since I think we have three meetings, there are some, I think, big themes in this budget that I react to as I get it that I kind of want to get on the record to help the public read it. I think first, I'm speaking for myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if my colleagues feel similarly about how much I loathe being in an austerity posture with Carbara's values. And I think the amount of progress we are making toward our goals in that posture is remarkable, to be honest.

For this to be the budget document that it is, we right sized our tax rate last year in a move that I think was pretty painful for us and more painful for our residents. I have only heard from people who have struggled with it. Every so often, an advocate tells us and I really appreciate this feedback. We've heard from a couple people like, oh, I'm really glad that the council was willing to take that step so that we could keep spending against our priorities. People have really low faith in government right now.

And I do think that there's a small percentage of people who are able to see the values behind it. Overwhelming number of people were hit really hard by that. And we are seeing some forces of corporate landlords lying and utilities soaking people to build data centers and a general assembly that we can't vote for, giving kickbacks to billionaires, that a public works department that has been setting records for customer service using a trailer for a bathroom are the conditions that our staff are picking up. We are living in a Ponzi scheme that is soaking Carrboro residents and it has led us to do a budget that I think, we sat here last week and we were talking about trying to be more aggressive on locally administered projects or two weeks ago. We asked for a lot because our residents asked for a lot and they get a ton from our staff.

And so I like some of this is ideological soapboxing, but as residents start to read this document for the next three weeks, one of the things that I want to really draw your attention to is the investment in our staff. We have invested in our staff, I think, in a way that I'm really proud of in my time on this council. And it is work that is not done. If you look at page 29, 20% of Carrboro residents have a household income of over $200,000 which is almost 100% higher than communities statewide. I think the number is 95%.

And I don't want to act like $200,000 is a crazy number. That's too white collar salaries. But that 95% higher than other communities, 95% of our employees are not making over $200,000 in their household. Almost none of our employees live here. The progress that we have made I don't think we would have had this level of budgetary performance at any other time I've been on this council.

I don't think we would be seeing innovation in climate equity in a revenue neutral year. I don't think I would be seeing meaningful benchmarking for big capital projects. I find that remarkable. And I find it remarkable under the conditions outlined on page 29. And so it is in that light that I will be reading the cost of living adjustment and the living wage as too late, but very welcome.

We will scrutinize many line items here, there will be quite a bit of back and forth and emails that we will update the public on over the next couple weeks. But I'm really proud of the work in this document under the conditions. I'm pretty grim about the conditions under which this document has been written. But I think it's a real achievement. And I really am grateful for it.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Ngo. Appreciate those comments. I want to ask about town hall renovation. So recommended budget fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven is a dash. I know we've talked about that extensively and not just now, years past.

And so kind of where are we as I see money for pickleball, safe streets for all planning and demonstration. We have Bowland Creek, phases three and four, half 1,000,000. Bowland Creek phase two design, 200,000. And folks can look at that section there. But where does that leave us with town hall renovation? We know how important that is and how critical it is. Mr. Keyes or town manager Tony.

Yes, thank you, Mayor, for that question. You all approved town hall renovations in a prior year budget. And so we still plan to issue debt. We don't have to issue it immediately. And so it'll have a very nominal impact on our budget. But we are moving forward soon with trying to put out an RFP. I think we paused just to make there's a number of things. It's a storm. Okay, that's a And losing public works and trying to find a location to keep them together and stable. And I think, actually, we're closer to that in finding a temporary home.

And so once we have and feel good about that, we will issue a separate RFP. And because we also want to look at our town properties to make sure we're utilizing them in the best manner and what are some other opportunities for town owned property. So we wanted to take a pause just to explore other options and making sure this is the best location even to do renovations for a new town hall.

Okay. And so since you brought up town owned properties, so will there be information later at some point about that inventory or an up to date inventory? Are we thinking about that at all?

Inventory.

Of our own properties that the town owns. Was that what you were talking about when

you No, said we don't own much. But the few that we have I mean, Century Center, Drakeford, Town Hall. Town, land, property. And we still, we also, the town just doesn't own much land.

So basically what we went through with Pathway, Crest Hill, where there is, Pee Wee Homes, you know, that we're excited about those. So we're getting kind of we don't have much more to look at is basically Okay. What you're had We time on

do my own some. And so, yeah, it behooves us to make sure what we own, we're using it in the best way that aligns with your values.

Okay.

So, I don't want to say too much about what we were exploring, but I think we just paused and looked at all options. But the storm really was the big pause.

Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Council members, any other questions? Mr. Keyes is still standing. I think Mr. Keyes can sit down.

All right.

I'm not sure. Are there questions for others council members? Or are we just going to leave it here and come back next week? Council Member Merrill.

I just had a very general question that might not even be budget related. But I was curious about the ADA improvements. I was wondering if the Does side Bear

did you want Bear to come up?

MATTHEW Maybe. You could also just I noticed there were some sidewalk smoothing that was happening recently. I didn't know if that was related at all to this.

Not directly, but part of ongoing maintenance. I don't know if Kevin wants to speak anymore about that. But it was a public works project.

I noticed it. I thought it was good. I just wanted to say thanks. Wherever the gratitude lies.

Thanks. Public works.

All right, cool. Thanks.

All right, thank you so much. Thank you, Councilmember Merritt. Any other questions? Councilmember, so we're going to chew on this. We'll come back next week.

It's a lot to chew.

It is. It absolutely is.

Don't try to do it all in one sitting.

Okay. Oh, I see. I don't know. He might be trying to give a motion to adjourn. Not just yet. Okay, Okay. Just checking. Colleagues, just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm going to have to travel next week for work. So I'll be participating remotely. So I believe next week we will have two council members remote. Council member Frey, as far as we know, and now council member Pasad Orovska. So we'll prepare for that with the town clerk. He'll get all that together.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for letting

me know. I have already sent the invitation to Councilmember Frase, but I will forward the invitation to you as well.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. All

right. Since obviously there's nothing else, is there a motion to adjourn the work session?

So moved. Second.

All right. It's been moved and properly seconded that we adjourn. Council members, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries seven-zero. We're adjourned.