City Council OKs $44M budget

LAURINBURG — The Laurinburg City Council approved a $44 million budget that includes another water and sewer rate hike as part of a five-year plan.

During a public hearing, no one spoke for or against the budget, which totals $44,438,023, combining the city’s four funds — General Fund ($11,714,033), Electric Fund ($18,336,501), Water and Sewer Fund ($11,088,773), and the Solid Waste Fund ($3,298,716). A total of $565,298 was used to supplement the General and Solid Waste Funds.

The budget is a $4 million increase from the current year’s spending plan. City Manager Charles Nichols Jr. said the main culprit of the increase is about $2.5 million due in debt service from about $30 million in revolving loan funds awarded to the city.

“You don’t really have to start paying those until the project’s complete and now we’re having a lot of these projects that are near completion, so we’ll have to pay that first financing payment next year,” Nichols said.

Despite the uptick in the budget, Nichols said the city is still able to fund all the “capital needs and operational needs of all the departments and funds.”

The bulk of the General Fund budget, which goes into effect in July, is allocated to the Police Department, $4,332,172. The Fire Department’s budget is $1,734,518 and $1,199,909 will be used towards Streets and Highways.

The city manager said that the budget reflects the addition of six new and “definitely needed” positions. Two of those roles will be devoted to beautification, for which the city has budgeted $678,136.

“We’ve been given Hammond Park back for maintenance and other projects, so that’s definitely a need,” Nichols said.

The other four positions will be for four new tree crew members.

“That will allow us to have two different crews,” Nichols said. “These crews work on our electric line right-of-ways to keep — when we have these thunderstorms coming through … limbs and everything off of our lines to keep the power up,” Nichols said.

City employees will see a 5% cost-of-living adjustment.

“All of our current fringe benefit package stayed the same, longevity amounts stayed the same,” Nichols said.

For the third year in a row, city residents will see a water and sewer rate increase, this time by 15%. In 2023, the city raised rates by 25% and last year, rates increased by 20%. The rates are expected to increase again in 2026 by 10%, then see one final increase by 5% in .

The rate increase over the course of the five-year period is part of the city’s aim to restructure its water and sewer to meet the industry standard and base water and sewer on usage versus line or tap size.

Following an Inventory and Assessment study conducted by Raftelis, city council members learned that an increase is also needed to target reserve funds and debt service on upcoming large capital projects, as well as projected increases in operational and maintenance costs.

The city’s tax rate will remain at 40 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

The city’s budget can be viewed on its website at City Hall.