The recommended Southern Shores budget for fiscal year 2025-26, presented to the Town Council last Tuesday by Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, calls for a 4-cent increase to the ad valorem tax rate—to be imposed on the Town’s revenue-neutral rate of 14.8 cents—and total General Fund expenditures of $11,706,772.
Mr. Ogburn estimated in his draft FY 2025-26 budget, which he previewed at an April budget meeting, that the revenue-neutral tax rate in Southern Shores would be 12.16 cents. He has recalculated it to be actually 2.64 cents more.
Property taxes to pay for the fifth and final year of debt service for the 2022-23 beach nourishment project will be assessed in addition to the ad valorem taxes of 18.8 cents per $100 of property value.
(As we have previously explained, a “revenue-neutral” tax rate is a tax rate estimated to produce revenue for the first fiscal year after a county-wide property reassessment that is equal to the revenue that would have been produced by the current tax rate if no reassessment had occurred. See The Beacon, 4/10/25.))
The Manager’s budget recommends adopting the revenue-neutral tax rates of 4.08 cents for Municipal Service District 1; 1.76 cents for MSD 2; and 2.51 cents for the town-wide beach nourishment tax rate.
During the upcoming fiscal year, the Town will “begin to prepare for planning a potential renourishment project for FY 2027,” according to Mr. Ogburn’s FY 2025-26 budget summary.
You may access the FY 2025-26 budget at https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/media/11986.
A public hearing on the recommended budget will be held during the Town Council’s meeting on June 3.
We will publish further analysis of the recommended budget before the hearing. Before we can do so, however, we must ask the Town Manager some questions about his numbers.
Salaries and benefits of Town employees, who next year will include seven full-time members of the fire department and an additional police officer, are driving the Town’s expenditures.
Heretofore, the Town paid the salaries, but not benefits, for three full-time members of the Southern Shores Volunteer Fire Dept., which is being incorporated into a municipal department in fiscal year 2025-26. (For more about the fire department’s restructuring and staffing, see The Beacon, 4/10/25.)
The Town Manager has also recommended hiring a full-time Public Information Officer in the Administration Dept.
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DON’T FORGET . . .
Mayor Elizabeth Morey is holding an informal Mayor’s Chat on Wednesday (May 14) at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center. Bring your questions and comments on “all things Southern Shores.”
The Town Entry Corridor Committee will meet on Tuesday at 9:15 a.m., also in the Pitts Center.
ENTRY CORRIDOR SURVEY
If you did not receive by Town email the survey prepared by the Southern Shores Entry Corridor Committee, which is seeking ideas on how to “shape a community-oriented, beautiful, and functional entryway” into town that reflects Southern Shores’ “heritage and value,” you may access it here:
Contrary to the committee’s representation, the survey will take you longer than five minutes to complete, if you actually give it some thought.
The committee is proposing to “revitalize and enhance” the U.S. Hwy. 158 entry corridor, which runs along the southern end of Southern Shores, where most of the Town’s commercial district is.
The survey closes June 6.
LAST, BUT HARDLY LEAST . . .
The Town Manager announced at the Town Council meeting that the newly rebuilt Trinitie Trail Bridge is on schedule to open by Memorial Day. The finishing touches on the sidewalks and roadway will be completed in the next few weeks.
And the offices of the Southern Shores Civic Assn. and the Chicahauk Property Owners Assn. have moved to the Town’s flat top at 13 Skyline Road and are no longer on the second floor of the Pitts Center.
THE SOUTHERN SHORES BEACON, 5/11/25
The Southern Shores Beacon 