Tagged: City Budget

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.

Charlotte is ranked third in the nation for paying its bills on time. Not just any bills – pension bills. That's according to a new report by The Pew Charitable Trusts. They found that the country's largest cities have an unpaid tab of more than $200 billion when it comes to retirement benefits promised to employees. And it turns out Charlotte has been preparing for retirement relatively well when it comes to pension plans.  

Budget debates don't typically get underway for the city of Charlotte until May – but the council has spent the last several months getting a head-start on deliberations.

Monday will be the last of three special sessions organized by Mayor Anthony Foxx to find consensus on a pet project - streetcar through Uptown Charlotte.