Fayetteville residents will get a stepped up Main Street

program, a slight tax cut and a variety of capital projects in the

city government's fiscal 1999 budget.

The city's employees will get about a half million dollars in

new pay and benefits aimed at reducing turnover in the spending

plan, unanimously adopted by City Council last week.

Homeowners can anticipate a two-tenths mill reduction in

property taxes in fiscal year 1999, about a $7 yearly savings for

a $100,000 home, as a result of the $10.7 million budget. The tax

rate will drop from 3.83 mills to 3.63 mills if projections run true,

about a 5.2 percent reduction.

Even so, property tax revenue is expected to rise about 10.7

percent due to new home building and this year's county-wide

reassessment of property values. Fayetteville's taxable property

is expected to increase in value by 15 percent.

The budget document does not address whether taxpayers

also will see taxes rolled back to compensate for the

reassessments. Raven said that will be addressed when the final tax digest is

approved this fall.

Finance director Lynn Raven expects a 21 percent increase

in sales taxes, which will fund 26 percent of the $5.8 million

general fund budget, the largest tax revenue category. Another

category, franchise fees, will rise a whopping 41 percent to take

third place as a general fund source, providing 13 percent of revenue.

The general fund budget, which includes all services funded

directly by taxes, will increase 15.33 percent compared

with 1998 expenditures of $5.07 million.

Actual operation of the city will increase only about 3

percent, said Raven. The bulk of the increase comes in an employee

retention plan, which provides large salary increases for employees

in their first and third years of employment.

Raven said the city lost 25 percent of its employees to

retirement or other jobs in 1996, and almost 20 percent in 1997.

The pay package includes a 2 percent across-the-board cost

of living increase, merit pay increases based on

performance evaluations, plus the retention program.

In addition to the general fund, fueled by taxes, the city

budget includes three enterprise funds, fueled by fees:

u Water and sewer expenditures for 1999 are $2.49

million, a slight decrease from 1998 expenses of $2.5 million due to

the fact that the city will buy less water from Fayette County in

1999. Recent opening of a new water treatment plant increases

the city's capacity to produce its own water.

The city is projecting $3.05 million in revenue for water

and sewer.

u Impact fees will provide $649,337 during 1999, and

the budget proposes to spend $885,489. The deficit will

be made up from the fund's balance, said Raven, and from state

Department of Transportation grants.

The money will be used for major transportation

improvements, including the realignment of traffic around the Ga.

Highway 92/Jimmy Mayfield Boulevard intersection.

u Capital projects will consume $1.55 million in 1999,

including a $1.15 million bond issue for Fayetteville's

ambitious Main Street program. That program is working to restore

the historic Hollingsworth House, buy and restore the

Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House, and continue to improve the

Courthouse Square to attract businesses and visitors.

That's good news to the Holliday House Association, said

association spokesman Vel Dean Fincher. "We have worked

hard for five years" in efforts to restore the historic house just

off Fayetteville's Courthouse Square, said Fincher, adding the

members felt all along that the best way to turn the home into a tourist attraction

was city ownership.

"We will commit to you to continue with the work," she added.

The association and the city can now "work hand in hand on the

restoration," she added.

City budgets for the next five to 10 years will include a half-mill

of property tax devoted to paying off the bond issue and maintaining

Main Street programs.

Other capital projects include upgrading City Hall's air

conditioning, an underground storage tank for the fire and police departments,

improvements to the front and a new roof for the City Hall fire

station, drainage and improvement projects, and a brush chipper for the

public works department.

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