HARRISONBURG, Va. (ROCKTOWN NOW) – Harrisonburg City Council is one step closer to passing the final budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, albeit with a slight change.

The council voted unanimously to adopt the FY25 at their meeting Tuesday night but will not officially pass until their second meeting later this month. While their vote Tuesday night included a proposed eight-cent hike for the city’s property tax, that increase will likely be lowered to five cents by the time City Council passes the budget upon a required second reading.

Council members convened for a work session earlier in the evening before the regular meeting to discuss any final changes to next year’s budget before adopting it. After some discussion with City Manager Ande Banks and Finance Director Larry Propst, council determined that the city could possibly afford to lower the eight-cent tax hike down to five cents between general revenue, state funding, and by actions to pay down the city’s debt for Middle River Regional Jail.

However, there was still some concern over the still existing tax increase. Mayor Deanna Reed felt conflicted over the proposed property tax increase, which would be allocated to Harrisonburg City Public Schools to cover the newly built Rocktown High School.

“I’m struggling with this,” Reed said. “This increase is really going to burden a lot of people.”

Her main concern was the budget’s impact on the more than 60 percent of city residents who identify as Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed – or ALICE.

“We needed Rocktown, we should commit to that, but we still have to think about our community and who lives here,” Reed added. “For us, we have so many people living paycheck to paycheck that this is really gonna hurt. There’s even gonna be some of our [city] employees, our teachers…you have to be able to afford to live here to have a job here.”

Council member Chris Jones pointed out that low-income families in the area are already feeling the squeeze from costs related to the school division before the proposed tax increase, referencing how many parents struggle to afford school supplies for their children’s classrooms.

“We’ve gotta remember that the burden falls on everybody, but it doesn’t fall on everybody equally,” Jones said. “All of those fees that the 60 percent are getting hit with from the schools or any other service – whether it’s the lights, the water or this or that. I know some of it we have to do because we accepted the debt, but we’re still increasing taxes, and not necessarily offering more services that everyone can use. So, we need to keep that in mind.”

Superintendent Michael Richards spoke with council members during the work session, as he said he would be open to doing away with classroom supply sheets sent home with students, in addition to other efforts to ease the financial burden on parents with children attending city schools.

City Council expects to take their final action on next year’s budget at their next meeting on May 28.

Safe Streets and Roads for All

City Council also gave its blessing to a resolution that will allow the Public Works Department to apply for a federal grant to improve the safety on Harrisonburg’s roads.

Safe Streets and Roads For All is a $750,000 initiative with $150,000 coming from city funds and a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Director of Public Works Tom Hartman explained during this week’s City Council meeting that the initiative consists of three parts, including an update to the city’s bicycle and pedestrian plan, developing a ‘complete streets’ guide and creating the city’s first safe routes to school plan.

“We currently don’t have one of those – we kind of hodgepodge and do the best we can,” Hartman explained. “But this would be a comprehensive look at each of the schools within the city with a with a safety assessment looking at gaps and infrastructure programs that we can use to incentivize and make it more popular to walk and bike to those areas.”

Hartman added that the grant applications will be submitted this week and if approved, the project will take three years to complete.