• By Todd Luck
• Posted Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Proposed county budget to be presented Thursday

County Manager Dudley Watts will formally present the staff recommendation for the FY 2022-2023 Forsyth County Annual Budget on Thursday, May 26, following the commissioners briefing, which will begin in the morning and resume at 2 p.m.

The meeting will be held at the Forsyth County Government, 201 N. Chestnut St. Commissioners meetings are televised live and live streamed on WSTV and are live streamed on the county commissioners meetings webpage along with the county’s Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo accounts. The proposed budget will be available for review in the County Commissioners’ Office at the Government Center, on the Budget Department webpage after the presentation, and copies will also be distributed to county libraries.

The budget process will continue with these commissioner meetings:

• A Detailed Budget Review that will start at 9 a.m. on June 2.
• A Public Hearing on the budget, where residents can give their comments, will be held at 2 p.m. on June 6 at the Government Center. Those wishing to give comments remotely call 336-422-1200 at 1:45 p.m. on the day of the meeting. They will be placed on hold and recognized to speak in the order their calls were received.
• Budget Workshops will be held June 7 and 8 at 9 a.m.
• A Special Meeting, where the commissioners may possibly adopt the budget, will be held on June 9 at 2 p.m.

If the budget isn’t adopted by the commissioners on June 9, they would consider it at a later meeting in June, but prior to June 30th as required by the North Carolina General Statutes.

“This has been a challenging year with many uncertainties,” said Watts. “The County deals with the same pressures that individuals and businesses face with inflation, higher interest rates and labor market challenges. I am pleased to present a spending plan that navigates these issues without relying on increased taxes to balance revenues and expenditures.”

During his presentation, Watts will talk about the Continuation Budget, which is the estimated cost of continuing to provide the county’s current levels of service to citizens. He will also talk about the Alternate Service Level Budget, which consists of a full listing of additional funding requests from departments and community agencies. This is to ensure everyone involved — including commissioners, staff and taxpayers — are aware of these requests. County Commissioners, who are elected to represent taxpayers, generally make changes to the budget before ultimately approving it.

Watts added “I encourage citizens to become involved and informed throughout the budget process so they can better understand the depth and scope of services provided by their local government and how their tax dollars are spent”.