BY MILES LAYTON

SWAN QUARTER — Hyde County Commissioners narrowly approved a budget 3-2 that included implementing new solid waste user fees that have come under fire in recent weeks.

During a special meeting on Thursday at the County Building, Commission Chairman Randal Mathews cast the tie-breaking vote in support of the budget for Fiscal Year 2025-26 – with Commissioners Shannon Swindell and Thomas Midgette voting in favor of the proposed budget and Commissioners Jan Moore and Jeffery Berry voting against it.   

The heart of the matter — the budget will implement a solid waste disposal fee of $180 per year for homes and a $400 per year fee for businesses. More on that in a moment.  

As to the budget – the property tax rate will remain the same at 92¢ per $100 valuation with no ad valorem tax increase. FY 2025-26 general fund budget is $19,044,012 — up from the FY 2024-25 adopted general fund budget of $18,581,397.

Speaking of taxes, the Commission approved a resolution for a ¼ cent county sales tax that would need to go to the voters for approval. If most voters approve the referendum, the Commission can levy the tax.

This tax, known as the “Article 46 Sales Tax,” provides additional revenue for county governments, which can be used for a variety of purposes, often including funding for schools or other county services. 

Let’s get back to the budget – the user fee debate.  

Commissioner Moore said she could not in good conscience support the budget resolution because her constituents do not support levying user fees for solid waste removal.  

“I know nobody wants to hear it, but I haven’t slept good since we started talking about this,” she said. “My phone has rung off the hook, and I’m sure the rest of you, every time you’re out in the community, you get talked to. But I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t have a solution. And in all fairness, I think the staff has done a really good job in balancing the various departments and trying to meet the needs.”

Moore continued, “My hang-up is solid waste. I don’t know what the solution is there. I don’t like what we’re looking at. And I honestly cannot in good conscience. I just can’t. It’s just, oh, I see these red flags. And the folks that put me in this position are very strongly opposed to it. I promised people when I got here, if I got here, that I would listen to them and I would take their feelings to heart. And although sometimes I think things are a good way to go and make perfect sense, they don’t. And they’re the reason I’m sitting here. So you’re going to get a ‘no’ vote from me.” 

County Manager Kris Noble defended the solid waste disposal fees, that she said are commonly charged by counties across the state.  

“I realize that this is a change, but I encourage everyone to remember that we are one of the only counties in the state that does not charge a solid waste fee,” she said. “And while I realize that this is different for the people that are here, that is no different than any other counties in the state of North Carolina.”

Moore interjected — recalling lessons learned from her mother, “’If everybody in that class jumped off a bridge, you’d jump in wouldn’t you?” And I thought, ‘no.’ There you go. I’m not saying the fee is not needed, I just think now it’s not the time – we cannot afford to hit citizens of this county with any additional fees. I mean, they’ve had all they can handle. They’re still in shock over the reevaluation. You know, I understand, but it’s not coming in (revenue). There’s never a good time. There’s not, but this sure as hell isn’t a good time… Maybe next year or down the road, it’ll be a little bit easier to swallow then.”  

Noble said the dump is a big expense in the county’s budget.  

“That dump is not free. The people that work there, they cannot work there as volunteers,” she said. “And it is the third largest portion of our budget. It’s not a little thing, and it’s not a right that we can have. It’s something that we pay for with tax dollars.”

Not approving the user fee would lead to a 6 cent tax increase and cuts in services, Noble said.    

“We have to approve this as written. We change it to take the $180 into a tax increase, which will be about 6¢, which will go on all properties across the board and not be evenly distributed as it is as a user fee,” she said. “Or we go back in and we take $700,000 off the budget. If we do that, we will be cutting departments or we will be cutting EMS shifts or we will be cutting services. We can have a three-day-a-week dump. We can have a five-day-a-week dump in Ocracoke and cut hours. So we’re cutting services. We’re increasing the tax rate or we’re increasing by a solid waste fee.”  

Moore worried that people wouldn’t pay the fees, maybe even dump their trash in other ways.

Noble said even if a person moves to another county, but owns a residential or commercial property in Hyde County, they will pay the user fee. User fees will be paid the same way as property taxes, with any nonpayment collected in any manner by which the delinquent personal or real property taxes can be collected.  

Chairman Mathews said that making solid waste removal more cost effective and generating more than $750,000 in revenue may reduce property tax rates in the long run and make solid waste removal rates would be more equitable.  

“I do not want to kick this can down the road,” he said. “I think we need to do this… Ultimately, I believe that we’ll be able to drop the tax rate,” he said. “Now I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep because I don’t know what’s going to be happening (in the future). I think this is a halfway step to providing revenue to support this county. One of the things I noticed four years ago when I got to be commissioner was our tiny budget, the second smallest in the state. And I knew that it’s a double-edged sword. You’ve got to raise revenue somewhere.”

Mainland folks are asking, why pay for Ocracoke’s trash, after all, that’s where the most money is being spent for trash service? That question came up during the meeting. Mathews provided the answer – “Ocracoke pays 42 percent of the tax base for Hyde County.” That and hauling trash away from the island is more expensive than providing that same service on the mainland, so that’s why trash removal is an issue — why user fees are needed, equity in rates.

Noble gets the last word.

“This is our first step to putting that cost onto the user,” she said. “So if it is Ocracoke that’s generating expense, this is the step. And if we stay where we are, it’ll never be that way. This is the way that we change it. This is the way that we fix it. This is our step towards assigning the cost of solid waste to the user, which is the appropriate way to do so.”