Wilmington Mayor John Carney signed off on a 2027 budget that includes water and sewer rate increases but no property tax hike.
The Fiscal Year 27 budget including General Fund and water/sewer expenditures totals $312.5 million. Wilmington’s residential and non-residential property owners will see no change to their property tax rates but water and sewer rates increased by 7%. Stormwater rates also increase by 7%.
In order to avoid raising property tax rates this year, the city had to pull from its reserves. Carney said that could make next year’s budget process more difficult.
“You need to keep in your mind this one fact: if we're $400 thousand there's about 1% on the property tax, right?” Carney explained. “So, if we have an $800 thousand deficit, we're going to need a 2% property tax increase. So, the deficit in this budget that we covered with the Budget and Tax Stabilization Fund was over a million dollars, so just do the math.”
Carney added city staff have multiple irons in the fire to put the city in better financial standing, including bolstering employment opportunities for tax revenue and reducing public safety staff overtime hours.
“[Overtime in the Fire Department] is driven in part by the fact that the EMTs are on the street running the ambulances [and] are so overworked because of these issues, street issues, that they end up taking days off,” Carney said. “And then you got to cover it with overtime, and that's why we had the additional officers or EMTs in the budget.”
Earlier this month, Carney and some City Councilmembers weren’t seeing eye to eye on how to address the lack of affordable housing through the budget.
Carney’s original budget proposal delegated $16 million to developers’ construction projects that enter an agreement to offer affordable units for the first decade of operation. In the final budget, $8.4 million is allocated for the Affordable Housing Subsidy.
Councilmember Christian Willauer said the city needs to have multifaceted approaches.
“Based on our talking to constituents, what was important to them, which focused not just on long-term solutions of building a certain number of new units, but were short-term solutions that people need right now with emergency rental assistance, with eviction prevention, with assistance for security deposit and first month's rent so people can get into a new unit,” Willauer said.
While several Councilmembers have prioritized affordability this spring, a rental assistance program is not in the budget.
Carney said there are funds going to community organizations that offer aid. $1.5 million will go to the Housing Support Block Grant, which could be used for short-term issues with Council approval.
