Wilmington City Council hears presentation on $351M budget for FY2024

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Wilmington City Council heard the presentation on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year at its meeting Tuesday night.

The $351 million budget prioritizes roads and traffic improvements, public safety, growth opportunities, homelessness and opioids, and affordable housing.

Originally, the budget included at 1.5-cent tax rate increase to cover the city’s purchase of the Thermo-Fisher Scientific building downtown. The proposed tax increase was met with backlash from citizens at the April 18 council meeting. However, in Tuesday’s presentation, there was no change to the tax rate for the upcoming year. The city manager said they now anticipate the city can still accomplish the goals of the council without the increase.

Before the council meeting on Tuesday, city staff presented to the Local Government Commission the purchase of the Thermo-Fisher building. They had hoped to find out whether or not the purchase of the building would be approved at the meeting, but Mayor Bill Saffo says they now anticipate they’ll find out in the next 30 days. This does not impact the purchase timeline set by the city.

“The discussion went very well, very frank. We’re very transparent in this process. We’ve had public hearings, and we’ve shared a lot of this information with the public,” Saffo said. “The public, the questions they have asked of us we have asked of our staff, they have investigated those particular issues and I think that we’re in a very good position.”

Council also approved a parking contract that will save more than $300,000 over the next five years. The city made an agreement with Pivot Parking to manage the city’s parking program, “Park Wilmington,” which manages over 3200 on and off-street parking spaces.

The contract will run up to a little less than $2.5 million. Saffo says the contract will make it easier for people visiting downtown.

“It was a very competitive process and they came up with a very competitive plan and a very good action plan for upgrading our facilities for the long term and preparing the City of Wilmington for the amount of growth we’re seeing in downtown,” he said.

Pivot Parking also works with Carolina Beach, Wrightsville Beach, and Surf City.