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High Point doesn’t plan any property tax increases for the 2009-10 fiscal year, but staff warns that increases may be needed later on.

To help cut costs, the city will freeze salary increases through June 30, 2010, eliminate 19 full-time and 4 part-time positions, offer one week of voluntary unpaid vacation to employees and suspend filling 31 vacancies. The eliminated positions were already vacant.

In a letter to the City Council, City Manager Strib Boynton said that, in later years, a continued reduction of state and county funding might require an increase in the property tax rate, a reduction in services or charging the city’s first monthly rates for solid waste.

State and county funding could fall more than $9 million for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The city will not know the amount of the shortfall until after the first quarter, July through October, Boynton said.

The state has hinted at the possibility of turning state maintained roads within municipal limits to the city governments. For High Point, that would be 91 miles of road, an estimated $788,000 per year.

The state has cut funding for the High Point Market by 23 percent for next year.

Guilford County is reducing its contribution to High Point Public Library’s budget by 18.9 percent and requesting the city pay 24.2 percent more to help pay for the animal shelter.

High Point’s proposed 2009-10 budget is $502 million, including city utilities and capital expenses. The general fund is $104 million, 2.4 percent less than this year’s budget. Other items highlighted in the budget:

• A 4 percent increase in the electric rate beginning July 1 to match the 4 percent increase in the city’s wholesale cost. Boynton said it could cost the city $1.2 billion — a 30 to 40 percent rate increases — to comply with energy-efficiency, renewable-energy and carbon-reduction measures proposed at the federal level.
• A 4.9 percent increase in the water and sewer rate in Jan. 1, 2010, related to projects such as the Westside Wastewater Treatment Plant improvements and the Randleman Dam.
• The city’s reserve balance remains at 10 percent above the total budget, a level the city strives to maintain. Boynton said by 2010-11 that the reserve would fall to below 7 percent, less than the 8 percent guideline recommended by the Local Government Commission.

Contact E.A. Seagraves at 883-4422, Ext. 241, or elizabeth.seagraves@news-record.com