By Ed Beroset
Pittsboro, NC – There have been a number of messages on the Chatham Chatlist about county taxes lately, but not much data about our taxes or exactly how it’s spent. Fortunately for anyone interested, and I’d imagine that would be every taxpayer in Chatham County, it’s not a mystery and is described in great detail in the 2023-2024 Budget document available here.
A few things that may be worth noting are the fact that the largest chunk (38%) goes to schools, followed by public safety (21%).
Chatham County has a top AAA/Aa1 bond rating, meaning that financial analysts at Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s apparently think that the county’s financial health is very good.
Some have expressed frustration that money is spent on things that they don’t use, or that don’t exist in their part of the county. For those, I’d like to point to the county’s use of enterprise funds, the goal of which is to eliminate the need for tax dollars and instead pay for some activities via usage fees.
Read the current budget and see for yourself whether you would make changes to how the money is spent. If so, I’d encourage anyone interested enough to comment here to consider that a more effective mode of participation might be to submit comment on the budget as it is being produced each year.