Salisbury City Council approves its Fiscal Year 2023 budget

Salisbury City Council approves the city budget for the fiscal year 2022-2023 (FY23). 

The $50,631,540 balanced general fund budget reflects a 6.6% increase in spending from the FY22 adopted budget. In addition to the general fund, the water/sewer, transit, broadband and stormwater funds comprise the overall city budget totaling $93,381,414. This total also includes capital reserve funds. 

Based on feedback from Council during the Tuesday, June 7, budget preparation meeting, the approved FY23 city budget maintains the current tax rate of $0.7196.  

The FY22 budget will conclude with over $2 million in surplus which will be returned to fund balance. Appropriating $2 million of fund balance in the upcoming fiscal year (FY23) will allow the city to meet some of the staffing challenges it faces, and to complete several large, one-time capital projects, such as:

• The city’s portion of several grant-funded sidewalk projects $257,000
• A storage facility $60,000
• Uninterrupted power supply for its information technology infrastructure $63,000
• Downtown dumpsters and recycling bins – Phase 1 $56,000

This use of Fund Balance will not significantly affect Salisbury’s Fund Balance, which is 36% of total General Fund expenditures, and is well above the Local Government Commission minimum recommendation of 8% and above the Council recommended floor of 24%. 

The FY23 budget includes a 4.2% water and sewer increase based on the Consumer Price Index for urban consumers for the South Region (CPI-U). An average monthly residential water and sewer utility bill, for a customer using 4,000 gallons, would be $63.08 (an increase of $2.49 per month).

Additional fee increases include a $30 increase to the annual motor vehicle fee.  This increase would provide additional funds for street paving. Staff also proposed $0.25 increase to stormwater fees to offset inflation and is in accordance the City’s 15-year stormwater Capital Improvement Plan. The stormwater fee increase also would provide funds for stormwater projects to reduce flooding and pollution to maintain compliance with the existing NPDES permit. 

The approved budget will be available on the city website beginning Wednesday, June 22, at salisburync.gov/budget.

*Update: The approved budget will be available on the city website by Friday, June 24th.