For those of you who asked about the slips of paper I gave the council members during last night’s meeting – it’s a comparison of the expenditures per resident for Jamestown, Wallburg, Archdale, Trinity, Lexington, Gibsonville, Elon, Lewisville, Clemmons and Thomasville. The numbers speak for themselves:

The data was pulled from a chart on page 87 in the Meeting Packet, and supplemented with info from the different towns’ Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (for fiscal year 2024-25). This morning I updated Jamestown’s population with the 2025 number, which brings our expenditure-per-resident to $2,031.

The three municipalities that spend the most have the highest property tax rates (Jamestown, Lexington, Thomasville). All three have a public golf course. Lexington has its own police force, fire department (three stations), four ball fields, 23 parks, a skate park, 15 tennis courts, 19 playgrounds, 3 pickleball courts and 12 basketball courts. Thomasville has its own police force, fire department (four stations), eight ball fields, 7 basketball courts, a skate park, 8 playgrounds, 3 community centers, tennis courts and a state of the art aquatic center.

I created the spreadsheet to emphasize the point that raising taxes shouldn’t continue to be the town’s unchecked funding source. At our current property tax rate of .655 (plus what we pay to Guilford County), Jamestown residents are taxed out. This town needs to get control of its spending – which is excessive for a town this size.

The concerns I expressed in the video clip about “SUBSCRIPTION FEES” and “DUES & SUBSCRIPTIONS” categories are because the total amount budgeted for both categories ($160,900) is more than double what was spent ytd in the current year (11 months thru May 31st). Prior to last night’s meeting, I asked the town manager why the amounts are so high, and what the difference is between “Subscription Fees” and “Dues and Subscriptions.”

His response: “The Governmental Accounting Standards Board requires us to account for subscriptions in a very specific manner. This is a very complex accounting issue that would require a long explanation and sitting down with Faith to review the rules and procedures for accounting for these items. Our auditor concurs that this is the appropriate methodology for accounting for subscriptions to meet those requirements.”

Still a mystery.

Similarly, the total amount budgeted for UTILITIES is $394,600, an increase of $150,767 over the amount spent ($243,833) ytd thru May 31st. The town manager said this is due to a 25% anticipated increase from Duke Energy (yet the budgeted amount reflects an increase of 59%). SERVICE & MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS increased from $82,663 to $139,880; DATA PROCESSING SERVICES from $65,279 to $98,500. No reason given.

Because we’re up against the clock (deadline of July 1st), we passed a Budget we could work with – but not until after we had the town manager undo some changes he made prior to last night’s meeting: add back three Music in the Park events (+$15,000) and video monitors for the Civic Center (+ $20,000) he removed, and fund them with removal of the lobbyists (- $35,000).

The result is a Budget that fully funds Town services, amenities and public safety (fire and sheriff contracts), provides a market rate salary increase and exceptional benefits package for Town employees, cuts the motor vehicle fee in half, holds water rate increases to 8% (with no increase in sewer rates), and keeps the property tax rate flat at .655. It gets us over the finish line with plenty of room for improvement.

On the revenue side, the staff estimates Jamestown’s property tax revenue will be less than last year. I disagree with that assessment. Their model doesn’t take into account new homes/homeowners; property revaluations from refinancing and existing home purchases; and they applied a revenue collection rate of 98%. According to the CPA firm we pay to do our annual audits (Strickland-Hardee), Jamestown’s annual collection rate is at least 99.75%:

You can view the Budget documents in the Meeting Packet:

Other business discussed at last night’s meeting:

BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR MORE FUEL/GAS: Amendment #6, which includes an additional $20,000 for fuel (gas) for town vehicles, was approved following a lengthy discussion in which Councilmember Burgess and I asked the town manager to provide us with a copy of the fuel policy, fuel logs/ledger and a list of the town’s vehicle assets. Our concern is that the additional $20,000 brings the total spent for fuel (gas and oil) in FY 2025-2026 to $167,000 which is double the amount spent in the previous year ($83,693)… and that Jamestown is only four square miles in size.

And no, the current spike in gas prices doesn’t justify the increase (we looked at average gas prices over the past three years through May 31 2026). Here’s a clip of that discussion:

2026 STRATEGIC PLAN NOT ADOPTED – following a motion by Councilmember Westmoreland, we deferred adoption of the 2026 Strategic Plan to the July meeting. The priorities and programming listed in the draft (in the meeting packet) are inconsistent with the results of Council’s two-day strategic planning session with UNC School of Government organizational consultant Rebecca Jackson, and our follow up session with staff, all of which took place in January. The process we went through to develop that plan, and the differences between this Council’s Plan versus the 2021 Plan (updated in 2025 by the previous Council) are discussed HERE.