Tagged: City Budget

It's time again for the city of Charlotte to draw up its annual budget – including a renewed push to raise property taxes for capital projects. Last year's capital investment program proved so large – and divisive – that the council and mayor couldn't agree on any plan.  They still can't. And in the interim, those divisions have proven to run deeper than city council politics.  They've shown up across Charlotte and they're the topic of a special WFAE public forum Thursday at 7 p.m. at Spirit Square. 

The Charlotte City Council learned Wednesday the price of its inaction on a capital investment plan. What they could have done last year by increasing the property tax rate 3.6 cents will now require an increase of more than 4 cents – and that doesn't even include the controversial streetcar. 

Mayor Anthony Foxx says the city needs to focus on getting the streetcar and nearly $1 billion capital budget plan approved in order to create more economic opportunities and see Charlotte grow in the future. He spoke at the City Council chamber on Monday morning in an annual state of the city address.

Think about this for a moment - back in 1960, the entire city of Charlotte was just 35 square miles.  Today it's more than 300 square miles. That's a 700 percent expansion as one neighborhood after another got swallowed up through annexation.

But now, there's not much land left to annex and recent changes to state law will make future annexation much harder.  No big deal, right?  Many people think Charlotte's plenty big. What few realize is the role annexation has played in the city's budget and tax rates over the years. WFAE's Julie Rose explains.