Tag Archive for: #hendersonnews

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TownTalk: More Information on Revaluation and Tax Rate Increase

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Vance County commissioners are divided on the issue of how often to conduct a property reappraisal and revaluation – state law requires the revaluation occur at least every 8 years, but many counties have opted to have them more often.

According to Commissioner Sean Alston, only about 20 percent of the state’s 100 counties – 22 counties – are on an 8-year cycle.

Wake County, for example, does a reval every two years, but others have chosen to be on four- or six-year cycles.

But local commissioners do not, so far, anyway, see eye to eye on what the frequency should be.

It was a topic of discussion at the June 13 budget work session, and at that time, the commissioners agreed on tabling the discussion for now and revisting it next year.

Commissioner Sean Alston said the county didn’t need to wait 8 years for the next revaluation. Judging from citizens’ responses to the most recent revaluation, many were surprised at the jump in property values.

Having revals more often “reduces the shock value,” said Commissioner Archie Taylor. “Our community was shocked this time,” Taylor said.

Commissioner Leo Kelly said he leans toward revals every four or six years. “The real estate market is volatile,” Kelly said.

The cost of a revaluation right now is in the neighborhood of $700,000, a figure that Commission Chair Dan Brummitt balked at shelling out more often than every eight years.

Alston and Kelly, however, said spending the money for more frequent reappraisals could reap benefits – in addition to not overwhelming property owners with large increases, more frequent revals could put the county in a position where it could return to a revenue-neutral rate, maybe even lower, said Kelly.

In arriving at consensus on the 10-cent tax increase per $100 valuation, Taylor said he didn’t want to pay the higher tax bill, but he was willing to do so.

“I want my county and my community I live in to get better,” he said.

Alston said the county can’t keep “using Band-aids” to create temporary fixes. “We’re running out of Band-aids…we have to have growth.”

The Vance County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on Monday, June 24 and could formally adopt the FY2024-25 budget at that time.

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Perry Memorial Library

The Local Skinny! Events At Perry Library

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Perry Memorial Library’s Youth Services Director Melody Peters took a few minutes Tuesday from tending to last-minute summer reading program details to talk about upcoming events that will be taking place soon at the library.

There’s a lot going on at the library, but Peters said she’s especially excited about the summer reading program kickoff. “I am expecting a big crowd – I really am!” she exclaimed on Tuesday’s segment of The Local Skinny!

Readers of all ages and abilities can complete reading journals and turn them in during the summer in exchange for cool prizes.

“Cool” is the name of the game today – the first 200 participants were going to get Pelican Sno Balls.

Library patrons can enjoy a musical performance at the library as part of “Make Music Day” throughout the city and county.

Clarinetist Tristan Beradi, a student at N.C. A&T State University, will perform in the gallery from 12 noon to 1 p.m.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, gather the family and head over to the library for Family Story Time. Peters said she listened to comments from busy parents who just can’t swing a library program during the week. And with sports activities on Saturdays, the only day left is Sunday.

So Peters said she’ll be curious to see how many folks turn out.

“We’re trying it out and hope people come,” she said.

Visit https://www.perrylibrary.org/ to learn more about all the programs at Perry Memorial Library.

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Cooperative Extension with Wykia Macon 06-18-24

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Listen live at 100.1 FM / 1450 AM / or on the live stream at WIZS.com at 11:50 a.m. Mon, Tues & Thurs.

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Fire Departments Could See Additional Funding

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The county’s volunteer fire departments stand to gain an additional $30,000 annually as commissioners and County Manager C. Renee Perry hammer out details of the FY 2024-25 budget.

Commissioners held a budget work session last week, with sights set on June 24 as a possible date to adopt the $57 million budget.

Each department, as well as the rescue squad and the Vance County Fire Department, would see $130,000 in county funding and the new hourly pay rate for part-time firefighters would increase to $17 an hour, up from $15 an hour.

To achieve these goals, the county’s fire tax would be bumped from a revenue-neutral rate of 5.9 cents per $100 valuation to 7 cents per hundred, as recommended by Perry.

This increase will generate and additional $300,000 in revenues.

That amount, matched with a one-time disbursement of about $300,000 from the fire tax general fund, would provide for the additional funding. The current total fire tax fund balance is about $625,000.

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Cooperative Extension With Wayne Rowland – House Ants

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Listen live at 100.1 FM / 1450 AM / or on the live stream at WIZS.com at 11:50 a.m. Mon, Tues & Thurs.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: Architects

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Lovers of historical architecture could come up with the analogy that if Old Granville County – what is now the four-county area that includes Vance, Warren, Franklin and Granville counties – were an art museum, then all the lovely homes that dot the towns, cities and countryside certainly are works of art to be admired and enjoyed.

Continuing that analogy, it was architects and craftsmen like Jacob Holt and Thomas Bragg and James Burgess who are just a few of the state’s premier artists whose creations still stand -and are still admired – today.

“They were able to express their aesthetic and the community’s idea of the aesthetic,” said Mark Pace, local historian and North Carolina Room Specialist at the Richard Thornton Library in Oxford.

Pace and WIZS’s Bill Harris talked about a number of homes, some standing and some long gone, that can be attributed to Holt, Bragg and Burgess in Thursday’s TownTalk segment of Around Old Granville.

Holt moved to Warren County in the 1840s, having worked with William Howard, an acolyte of Thomas Jefferson, in Prince Edward County, Va. He estimates that as many as 80 Holt houses still stand, a tribute to the craftsmanship Holt and his team of artisans poured into each build.

“If you’ve got a Holt house, it’s not a ramshackle mess,” Pace said.

He set up shop in Warren County and soon laid claim to having the second-largest non-agricultural work force around, Pace said.

Among his workers were enslaved persons as well as freedmen. “He had the talent and he had the crew,” he said.

And although it wasn’t his first build, the William Eaton House is what put Holt on the map.

With motifs of Greek Revival, complete with columns, cornices, elaborate mantelpieces and sidelights, the Eaton house remains “one of the showplaces of Warrenton,” Pace said.

Montmorenci is another well-known home in Warren County, and was built by James Burgess in 1822.

Much of the interior of Montmorenci was dismantled and sent to be part of the DuPont estate called Winterthur in Delaware, Pace said, including incredibly engineered spiral staircases and intricate mantelpieces.

Thomas Bragg was also a contractor and architect who worked in the area in the 1820’s through the 1840’s, Pace said. He did significant work in Wake County and designed the William Polk House there.

The home Bragg built for his family still stands in Warrenton. Some of Bragg’s children went on to achieve fame in their own right: Thomas, Jr. became a governor of North Carolina and Braxton was a general in the Civil War – it’s for him that Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, was named.

 

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North Carolina Teacher Retention – NCAE

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Teacher pay and a moratorium on private school vouchers are two of the tangible issues that the president of the North Carolina Association of Educators has on her radar. But Tamika Walker-Kelly also is calling on legislators to join her as she and other public school advocates seek to restore a culture of respect for the thousands of teachers who work in public schools.

Yes, salaries have gone up – it’s about $41,000 for starting teachers, Walker-Kelly acknowledged on Thursday’s The Local Skinny! But North Carolina has lost ground to other states and now is ranked at 38th in the nation for teacher pay.

“We know our legislators in Raleigh could do more,” she said, adding that higher pay is a critical component when it comes to recruitment and retention, but teachers deserve to have respect restored to their profession – “they want to be valued and be heard, and their contributions… are respected and valued,” she said.

The 2024-25 school year marks the fifth year that Walker-Kelly has led the NCAE, which she said is the largest education advocacy group in the state.

She is a proud product of North Carolina public schools and has taught music all of her 18 years in Cumberland County.

“I was inspired by my high school chorus teacher,” she said. “I wanted to be a music teacher just like her.”

Public school teachers interact with more than 1.5 million students across the state’s public school districts – that number accounts for about 85 percent of all children in the state.

The legislature’s private school voucher program stands to siphon off upwards of $500 million dollars, a move the NCAE opposes.

“As an organization, the NCAE continues to be in opposition to vouchers,” she said, adding that taxpayers’ money should go to public schools.

Supporting universal breakfast and lunch programs, mental health programs for students and additional tutoring are other areas of interest for the NCAE, and Walker-Kelly said “education should be everybody’s issue. It should be a bipartisan effort, she said, adding that the NCAE would continue to be a voice for public schools in the General Assembly, across the state and in local communities.

She ranks visiting schools across the state as one of her favorite things to do in her role as NCAE president.
“We should never let people forget that great work goes on in public schools every single day.”

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