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AHOSKIE – With little discussion, the Ahoskie Town Council unanimously approved the town’s operating budget for FY 2021-22 here Tuesday evening at their regularly scheduled meeting.

Town Manager Kerry McDuffie presented a General Fund budget in the amount of $5,873,225. He emphasized that the budget maintains the current property tax rate of 81 cents (per $100 of value).

All fees (water, sewer, garbage, planning/zoning/inspection, and park rental are also unchanged.

“The budget is balanced without appropriating any money from our fund balance,” McDuffie noted. “The budget proposes to save a little, pay off a little extra debt, and do a few things for the community. This is a good balance for everyone.”

Ahoskie’s full-time employees will remain at 53. The budget includes the final one-third of a salary hike that began for those employees in 2019. That cost of living adjustment for 2021-22 is 1.4 percent, the same as last year.

As usual, property tax ($2.39 million), local option sales tax ($1.26 million), garbage collection fees ($586,041) and motor vehicle taxes (nearly $295,000) are the main sources of revenue in the newly adopted budget.

The police department ($1.78 million), town administration ($757,393), fire department ($591,631), and streets ($475,369) will receive the lion’s share of the revenue.

Ahoskie’s Enterprise Fund (water and sewer) is budgeted at $3,700,500. The majority of those operating funds are generated by user fees, which total $3,179,313.

The new budget is effective July 1.