By Miles Layton

COLUMBIA — Town employees are in line for a five percent pay raise and property owners could soon face a four-cent tax rate increase under a proposed 2026-27 municipal budget presented Monday during the Columbia Board of Aldermen’s regular meeting, where residents also raised concerns about the town’s marina slip capacity and aldermen debated building colors for an ongoing renovation project.

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Proposed budget calls for 5% employee raise, tax increase

Town Manager Monica Mauffray presented the proposed 2026-27 municipal budget, her first since taking over as town manager. The document cites ongoing inflation, the below-capacity operations of the Tyrrell Prison Work Farm — which reduces the town’s water and sewer revenues — and uncertainty over potential changes in state-level revenue sharing as drivers of the proposed increases.

The budget calls for raising the property tax rate by four cents, to 58 cents per $100 of assessed value, up from the current 54 cents. Tyrrell County’s most recent property revaluation placed taxable property in town at $60,480,649, up from $42,966,000 eight years ago — a windfall in assessed value that the proposed budget would supplement with a rate increase rather than hold the line on taxes.

Tax collections lag prior year — Tax Collector Donna Combs reported that the town’s collection rate stands at 83.96 percent — down from 86.45 percent at the same point last year, a gap that comes as the board weighs a tax rate increase.

The budget also recommends a five percent across-the-board pay raise for all town employees.

“The raise of 5 percent will help keep pace with the inflation rate and hopefully retain employees so they will not look for other places of employment,” Mauffray said.

No increase in water or sewer rates is anticipated. 

The town carries a fund balance of approximately $4,036,521 with $1,080,289 in designated reserves. The town’s contribution to the Tyrrell County Sheriff’s Office for enhanced in-town law enforcement is proposed to remain flat at $96,366. The fire department’s requested budget is $35,000. 

Finance Officer Juliana Owens reported that general fund revenues are at 82 percent and expenses at 77 percent, while the utility fund shows revenues at 83 percent and expenses at 70 percent. The board voted unanimously to approve a budget amendment covering a fire department pay increase approved in October but not fully accounted for in the current budget.

Good news and bad news

Columbia has been awarded $15,040,000 in American Rescue Plan funds for water and sewer infrastructure improvements, including a freshwater well currently under construction. 

And as noted in previous stories, Columbia is participating in the Harbor Town project, which received a $10 million grant, with each participating town expected to receive up to $2 million for boardwalk and docking repairs. Congressman Don Davis’s office separately awarded the town a $500,000 HUD grant for boardwalk repairs.

Despite the federal dollars flowing in, Mauffray’s budget message painted a sobering picture of Columbia’s local economy. The former Oyster Bar on Main Street remains vacant, Columbia Crossing restaurant has again closed (I heard about that; they cooked good food), Family Dollar is still shuttered, and a hardware store that served the community for 67 years has closed its doors. The anticipated Interbanks RV Park is now on hold for at least two years. Columbia also remains without a commercial bank.

But let’s end this section with a positive note — Black Dirt Restaurant, Soundside Sporting Goods, Royal Farms, and the old barber shop has been repurposed into a retail store by Pocossin Arts, a holistic counseling business opened the day of the meeting, and the reopening of a commercial laundry on N.C. 64 is anticipated.

The board voted to set a public hearing on the proposed budget for June 1, at 7:45 p.m. at the Columbia Municipal Building, 103 Main Street. Citizens may attend in person or submit written comments to Mauffray at P.O. Box 361, Columbia, N.C.

Marina slips a concern as boating season opens

Jean Lambert, of Main Street, came before the board with observations about boat traffic at Columbia’s waterfront and what she described as a growing mismatch between visiting vessels and the slip dimensions approved by the Coastal Area Management Act.

“It’s an exciting time for boaters,” Lambert said. “It’s the beginning of the recreational boating season on the Scuppernong and on the Albemarle Sound and beyond.”

Lambert said she has been informally tracking visiting boats because the town does not record vessels that stay fewer than three days, and urged the board to expand its record-keeping to include the beam — the width — of boats that dock, in addition to the date, vessel name, owner’s name, and length already logged.

“The width is called the beam, and that’s important because of the width of the slips that have been approved by CAMA,” she said.

Of seven boats she personally documented since the first of the year, Lambert said all seven were longer than 35 feet and five were too wide to fit comfortably in the existing slips. She noted that drawings for the town’s new marina show 12-foot-wide slips — narrower than the 14-foot slips currently in place — raising questions about whether the planned marina will accommodate the boats already seeking to use Columbia’s waterfront.

“We had a catamaran in here that was 20 feet wide,” she said. “We had a troller, 50-foot troller, 16 — I think 16.5 foot wide.”

She described one incident in which a 14-foot-wide sport boat squeezed into a slip so tightly the crew could not deploy fenders to protect the hull.

“A fender is a bumper that protects the boat,” Lambert explained. “They tied their ropes real tight, all the way across. It blocked two slips to do it, but because they’re so wide, in that 14-foot slip, they couldn’t put their fenders down.”

Lambert called for public discussion of how the town plans to address the problem before the new marina is built to specifications that may already be outdated.

“I know that the town has talked about a plan to address that, but I’ve never seen anything public on it,” she said. “I would like maybe some public discussion as to how to alleviate the problem of the narrow slips.”

Christmas lights still burning in May

Timothy Keith Nielsen, of Main Street, pressed the board on an expense he said he has flagged every month since February: decorative lights that remain lit on downtown buildings well past the holiday season.

“May, which is now, and April, and March, and February — I’ve asked about the Christmas lights. They’re still on,” Nielsen said. “Why are we paying for Christmas lights in May?”

Mayor Pro Tem Bryan Owens argued that the lights serve a practical purpose and improve downtown’s appearance, which has little other exterior lighting.

“We don’t have any power out here, and having something on our buildings is nice,” he said. “I think it honestly makes the downtown look good.”

Nielsen remained skeptical that aesthetics alone justify the ongoing cost to taxpayers.

“That’s your opinion. Sure. I mean, what’s the purpose of them? Not to look good, because we got to pay for it. It’s got to be costing a couple hundred a year, anyway.”

Odds and ends

The board reached a three-to-two consensus on Pacific Blue for awning colors on a town building undergoing renovation, with Sherwin-Williams’ Agreeable Gray discussed as the leading option for the building exterior. The contractor estimated exterior painting could begin within approximately two weeks.

And Mayor Pro Tem Owens reported that the Tourism Development Authority and Tyrrell County have committed approximately $50,000 toward a wayfinding signage project and asked the board to authorize staff to find $20,000 in town funds to complete the goal. The board approved the motion. Owens also noted that DOT has approved placing the “Welcome to Columbia” sign in the highway median near the bridge.

The board’s next regular meeting is June 1. Town offices will be closed May 25 in observance of Memorial Day.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​