MikeMooreMedia

Summer Woodard, Reidsville City Manager 06.26.24

2024-25 Budget, city employees, property tax, water and sewer rates, new Director of City Marketing and Economic Development, Independence Day Celebration July 3.
www.RiseUpReidsville.com

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 26 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Mike Moore Media. On our media line I have Summer Woodard and she is Readsville City Manager and Summer is here to tell us about a number of things happening around the city. Summer hey welcome back how are you? I'm doing well Mike and so glad to be back on the show and back with you. I'm delighted to hear your voice and we've got some good things to talk about today as always but that budget is done it starts next Monday officially. Give us an idea of the budget how it all came together and the reevaluation and all of that that certainly affected all municipalities. Yes sir thank you so much for that so one of the things I want to give a special thank you to all of our city staff and city departments particularly Chris Phillips Haywood Cloud and Angela Stadler and LaTasha Wade. They were instrumental in putting the budget together finalizing numbers and then I also want to give a thank you to Mayor Gorman our city council for seeing the need in our budget and we actually got our budget passed the last Tuesday June the 11th at our city council meeting so we're very excited about that. A couple things in the budget we did do a four percent COLA for all of our employees because of one of council's priorities is ensuring that our teammates are provided a good stable work environment and we certainly understand what the price of things in the world right now a COLA certainly does help and go a long way. We also brought back our merit system so some employees could see up to a three percent merit increase in this budget and it's based on their annual evaluation. So again just trying to focus on ensuring that our employees are taking care of for all the hard work that they do and the services they provide for our residents. Certainly the biggest thing in this this year's budget of course that every every municipality including Rockingham County faced was the annual reevaluation. The city's current tax rate is $0.73 per $100 evaluation. With the reevaluation we were able to drop that tax rate so our new proposed tax rate that was approved last week went from 73 cents down to 66 cents per $100 evaluation. The big thing about that with reeval that's something that's required by the North Carolina General Assembly in the state to happen at least every four years no more can't go past eight years without having it done. The last time Rockingham County did a reeval was four years ago so we were due for one this year. On average in Reedsville most of our homes went up from anywhere from 30 percent. Some homes went up as high as 78 percent in the type of what their homes valued at and a lot of that valuation was triggered by the housing market. Any of our listeners who purchased a home during pre and post-pandemic or were sold a home during that time period probably as well aware of the real estate market that was driving the economic factor with residential home prices therefore that's reflective in this reeval. So that's one of the big things in the budget but again tax rate went from 73 cents per $100 a value down to 66 cents per $100 a value. The other big thing do you want to make our viewers and listeners aware of is the city of Reedsville did have to look at doing a water and sewer rate increase. On average that'll be about a 35 percent rate increase for residents with both water and sewer. If you do have just water or sewer only that will fluctuate slightly more. It was desperately needed but last time the city of Reedsville had done a water or sewer rate increase was in 2020 that was four years ago. Anyone who's went to the grocery store since just in the last couple months the last couple years if you think about what you paid for a loaf of bread or a carton of eggs in 2020 I can promise you it is significantly increased if you go to the store today and try and buy the same product. That's what we're facing with our chemical cost. Electrical cost for instance on a different note our streetlights went up Duke Energy. Our streetlights increased $100,000 this year. They were just some factors that we our budget could not absorb. So therefore we had to try and get some of those relief from passing that on just to be able to provide services. So the one thing we did want to make sure that our listeners are aware of the water and rate sewer increase will not be effective until October the 1st. We wanted to make sure we got information out there to all the residents that may be affected by that increase so they have time to start maybe setting aside. But on average your water bill might increase $20. I know when we say 35% a lot of times that sounds significantly but when you equate it down to dollars that can fluctuate anywhere from additional $10 up to $20 a month. So that was just a couple of the highlights in this year's budget process but we certainly do appreciate the time that city staff put into the budget and for our council's consideration and adopting the budget. And for our listeners out there if you've got any questions in reference to your property tax bill water bill please feel free to call us here at the city of reach full. Our number is 336-349-1030. We'll be glad to try and address any of the concerns that you may have or answer any questions you may have. Excellent okay thank you for covering all of that so well. Summer people don't realize how how expensive it is to get water to our home and when you mention even that Duke energy there increasing your cost $100,000 that that is not small change by by any means for sure. Yes sir thank you. Okay now let's talk about a celebration coming up next week. Absolutely so let's talk something fun. So just want to make our listeners aware that the city of reach will be sponsored by our Parks and Rec Department. We'll be having our Independence Day celebration. It will be Wednesday July the 3rd. We'll have fireworks, food, a kids own, music. I believe the band that's playing is the legacy group. It will be Wednesday July the 3rd from 9 p.m. and that is at Lake Readsville. The address is 630 Water Works Road in Readsville and the cost is $5 per car and walk-ins are $3. So $5 a car or $3 for a walk-in but that will be next Wednesday from 5 to 9 p.m. July the 3rd at Lake Readsville 630 Water Works Road and we will have our Independence Day celebration fireworks, food, kids own music. It will be a great time so any of our listeners out there we hope that you'll come join us for this wonderful celebration. Yeah that's always such a fun event in Readsville. So one week from today the Independence Day celebration. Oh that's great. Well I hope everyone can get to that and have a good time. You have some you're mentioning your team and working on the budget earlier. Now there's a really good example of a team Readsville there but let's talk about a new member of the team. Yes we're very excited about three months ago we were able to look at we had been looking for an economic development director and then we had an opening for a city marketing director position. So one of the things we looked at doing was trying to combine those two positions. So we created a position called director of city marketing and economic development. The last two months we've actually spent trying to find our next teammate for that position. We actually had 41 applicants for that position. Wow. And from the 41 applicants we narrowed it down to 10 people. Members of our team interviewed those 10 people. We gave them they had to do it was a pitch for why Readsville. They had to do a press release on an economic development project and they also had to create a supplier for like our splash pad opening. So just trying to test to get a fill for some of our candidates there. From that group of 10 we've then narrowed it down to two final candidates and those two final candidates we invited to the city of Readsville gave them a tour and did a one-on-one interview with our management team members and then also myself and our two ACMs along with our HR director and our interim economic development director Mr. Williams. From those two individuals we are very excited to announce that we have selected a candidate and his name is Mr. Montana Brown. He will be starting for our team next Monday. His first day with us is July the 1st. He is actually he comes from the city of High Point. He's been with the city of High Point for about four years. He's worked in various roles there. He got his start actually in planning and zoning and inspections department. So he's familiar with that aspect. He worked his way up to where he's actually an economic development manager for the city of High Point. So we're very very excited to welcome him and his expertise to our team. So hopefully we'll get him a scheduled section in your show Mike and let our listeners be able to get to know our newest teammate Mr. Montana Brown who's our new director of city marketing and economic development. Oh that's that's good news indeed. Well look forward to meeting Montana and you know it doesn't tell him his credentials speak well his qualifications and all of that but you know when you said over 40 applications that makes a statement right there doesn't it about the people who who see the value in being a part of team Reinsville. Absolutely we were very very thrilled to see so much interest in that position to see the momentum we have going here at our team. So really want to thank any of those who submitted an application because your time is very valuable. So thank you for your consideration. Okay and thank you for your time here Summer. Anything else before we wrap it up? No sir Mike I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week in a wonderful July 4th celebration. If you're out and about Mike come and visit us next Wednesday on July the 3rd. That says like a plan. All right. Happy July 4th to you and getting in the new fiscal year as well. Summer always a pleasure. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much. Bye Bye. That's Summer Woodard. She is City Manager of Reinsville and good news there about all kinds of things. Now you can get more information about the city of Reinsville. On the website riseupreinsville.com. Follow them on Facebook and keep up with all of the events and somebody we didn't even talk about Market Square and all of the good things happening there. But you can find that on all social media platforms. [BLANK_AUDIO]