In a FY 2025-26 budget workshop this morning that primarily focused on staffing the new municipal Fire Department in its first year, the Southern Shores Town Council discussed a potential general property (ad valorem) tax-rate increase of 4 to 5 cents in order to cover additional costs.
This tax-rate increase would be on top of the revenue-neutral tax rate of 12.16 cents per $100 of property value that Town Manager Cliff Ogburn presented in his report to the Council of a “draft of a Manager’s recommended budget” for fiscal year 2025-26.
“We still have a ways to go” Mr. Ogburn said of the Town’s draft budget, which has expenses exceeding revenues by $1,111,500, an amount that a tax increase of 4 cents would cover.
That budget, however, only includes costs for hiring three new full-time fire captains, who would work 24 hours on and 48 hours off, instead of four new full-time fire captains, who would work 24 hours on and 72 hours off, as recommended by Fire Chief Ed Limbacher and approved by Town Council consensus this morning.
Mr. Ogburn has currently budgeted $1,680,958 for the Fire Department next year, which is about $650,000 less than has been tentatively budgeted for the Police Department.
The four new Fire Department employees would join the Fire Chief, the Deputy Chief, and the Assistant Chief as full-time salaried employees and enable the department to have four people on duty during the busy weekday hours. The department also has two part-time salaried administrative employees.
None of the current salaried employees receive benefits. In FY 2025-26, with the transition to a municipal department, all full-time salaried employees also would receive benefits.
In an extended discussion involving all Council members, Mayor Elizabeth Morey and Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal expressed some interest in eliminating the Assistant Chief position, but Chief Limbacher strongly argued against that as a “quality of life” issue.
Such an elimination would reduce the free time of the remaining two chiefs—increasing weekend work—he said, and the Chief is committed to improving the “work-life balance” of all members of the department, who view it as a major concern.
Mr. Ogburn will submit his proposed FY 2025-26 Annual Operating Budget to the Town Council at its May 6 meeting. The public hearing on the budget will be held at the Town Council’s June 3 meeting, after which the Council will likely vote on its approval, although the Town has until June 30 to adopt the FY 2025-26 budget.
If the Town Council approves a proposed tax-rate increase of 4 cents or 5 cents, property owners would pay 16.16 cents or 17.16 cents per $100 of property value next year, which would be less than the 19.58 cents per $100 that they paid in the current fiscal year because of Dare County’s reappraisal.
Taxes for the beach nourishment project would be additional, of course, but they, too, would have a new revenue-neutral tax rate. According to Mr. Ogburn, the townwide beach nourishment tax rate would drop from 4 cents to 2.48 cents; the multiservice district (MSD) 1 tax rate would drop from 7.15 cents to 4.94 cents; and the MSD2 tax rate would drop from 3 cents to 1.74 cents
(As we explained in our post yesterday, a “revenue-neutral” tax rate is a tax rate estimated to produce revenue for the next fiscal year (2025-26) equal to the revenue that would have been produced by the current tax rate (19.58 cents in 2024-25) if no reappraisal had occurred. See The Beacon, 4/10/25, for more information.)
The last time the Town Council raised the ad valorem tax rate was in 2012. According to Mr. Ogburn, the rate went from 14 cents per $100 of value to 16 cents per $100 of value. All other increases since then, he said, have been revenue-neutral. (We’re unclear about the distinction; certainly, the tax rate has gone up since 2012 to the present 19.58. With the townwide beach-nourishment tax added on, the lowest tax rate in Southern Shores in FY 2024-25 was 23.58.)
Dare County reassessed property values twice during the past 13 years: in 2013 and 2020, observing what was once a fairly standard seven- to eight-year cycle. (We remember the revaluations of 2005, 1998, and 1989.) This year, the County embarked on a new five-year revaluation schedule.
According to Mr. Ogburn, the County-assessed value of all property in Southern Shores in FY 2025-26 increased 74 percent over last year: from $1,628,760,000 to $2,832,200,000.
Longtime Town Finance Officer Bonnie Swain said at the meeting that the Town can expect a downward adjustment to about $2.6 billion when successful assessment appeals are factored in.
Property owners have until April 30 to file appeals of assessments, either by mail or online at Dare County’s website page for revaluations.
Mr. Ogburn’s draft FY 2025-26 Southern Shores budget anticipates $5,641,397 in ad valorem tax revenue and $3,858,358 in occupancy, sales, and land-transfer taxes.
SPEAK TO YOUR TOWN COUNCIL MEMBERS
The Town Council left no doubt during its meeting this morning that the ad valorem tax rate will go up in FY 2025-26, perhaps by as much as 5 cents.
No Council member is very happy about raising taxes, but, as Councilman Rob Neilson said, seemingly for all: “Something’s gotta give somewhere.”
Councilman Neilson and his colleague, Councilman Mark Batenic, met with volunteer firefighters to find out how they feel about the Southern Shores Volunteer Fire Department’s municipal transformation. They encountered a tightly knit group of young people who are dedicated to serving the town and enjoy what they do.
Both Council members strongly supported the higher tax-rate increase to ensure that the Fire Department’s high-quality service reliably continues, and it remains an attractive place to work.
The Council, and the Town Manager, briefly discussed trimming the costs of some Town services, to save some money, but the services that they mentioned, such as recycling, chipping, and limb and branch pickup, are generally well-liked by property owners. No one seemed eager to cut services, but surely there are some costs within the budget that can be eliminated.
In at least the past two fiscal years, the Town Manager has dipped into the Unassigned Fund Balance, which is essentially a multi-million-dollar emergency disaster reserve, to balance the budgets, but doing so again is not favored by the Town Council.
We will pass along Mr. Ogburn’s recommended FY 2025-26 budget, as soon as he has revised and circulated it.
Mayor Morey appealed to all Southern Shores citizens to express their views on the potential tax-rate increase to Council members. They would like to hear from you.
After the budget meeting, The Beacon spoke with the Mayor informally, and she advised us that she is not committed to doing beach nourishment to the extent it was done in 2022-23 every five years just as a matter of course.
Mayor Morey said she would not “do” beach nourishment “just to be doing it”–a view that we find to be refreshing. Dare County Manager Bobby Outten has spoken of the five-year cycle as a given for sand replenishment.
Sharing mobilization costs with other towns might make a five-year schedule appealing, Mayor Morey noted. That remains to be seen.
The Mayor also told us when we asked if she was running for reelection in November that she would give it “serious consideration.”
Town Councilwoman Paula Sherlock’s four-year term is also ending this year.
[On a personal note, I would like to say that May 6 is my birthday, and I do not plan to spend it at Town Hall. If there are any enterprising journalists out there who would like to cover the Town Council’s meeting that night, please contact me at ssbeaconeditor@gmail.com. Thank you!]
By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon, 4/10/25
The Southern Shores Beacon 