Calling the $24 billion state budget passed by North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature “an astonishing failure,” Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount, vetoed it June 28. 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has a budget. The N.C. House of Representatives has a budget. The N.C. Senate has a budget. But as of now, the state of North Carolina does not. 

The town of Franklin’s adopted 2019-20 budget will not include funding for local nonprofit organizations as it has in the past. 

The Jackson County Commissioners will adopt the budget for fiscal year 2019-2020 in a special-called meeting at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, a change from the original June 18 adoption timeline.

Angela Phillips painted a painfully realistic picture of what it’s been like inside her second-grade classroom at Cartoogechaye Elementary for the last few years. 

Jackson County’s proposed budget for 2019-2020 won’t require an increase from the current property tax rate of 0.38 cents per $100 of value, and at $65 million it clocks in at 0.78 percent higher than the 2018-19 approved budget and 2.01 percent lower than the amended 2018-19 budget. 

In the last few years, Jackson County has poured significant investment into its public schools, including $9 million in much-needed repairs to roofs, heating and water systems; new teaching positions paid for through local funds; security upgrades; and, in the last budget year, six school counselor positions, four school resource officers and one juvenile crime detective. 

In preparing the proposed budget for 2019-20, Swain County continues to hold the line on the county’s low property tax rate, but it will mean that some funding requests and county needs will have to wait another year. 

Town of Franklin Manager Summer Woodard recently presented the town council with a proposed budget for 2019-20 that would maintain the current property tax rate and increase the cost of water and sewer for customers. 

For the first time in several years, Macon County Manager Derek Roland is proposing a small property tax increase moving into the 2019-20 budget year to support increased expenses and much-needed capital projects.