Buncombe Commissioners Review County Services, Costs Ahead of FY27 Budget

Buncombe County's Board of Commissioners continued shaping its fiscal year 2026-2027 budget on March 24, with a work session focused on what county departments will need when FY27 opens July 1. No votes were cast and no formal decisions made, but the session gave commissioners a detailed look at the organizational and financial pressures likely to define the county's spending plan through June 30, 2027.

The backdrop is costly: capital spending from the county's general fund is projected to exceed $30 million in fiscal 2026-27 after hovering around $20 million per year for the past decade. Driving that figure upward are a combination of deferred maintenance, storm recovery obligations, and macroeconomic forces that commissioners are explicitly working around as they build the budget.

Chief among those forces is inflation. For the vehicle fleet alone, 67 vehicles have been identified as eligible for replacement in FY27, along with 3 ambulances in need of remounts. A new ambulance runs $664,000, including medical equipment; a remount costs $227,000 and can extend a vehicle's life by five years. That math compounds quickly against a backdrop the county describes as a near record-high, five-year compounded inflation rate of 24.4%, the highest in more than 30 years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The post-Helene landscape of decreased sales and property taxes continues to have a significant effect on budget planning as well. Commissioners are also weighing a partial federal government shutdown, a stalled state budget, partially funded mandates from state and federal governments, and the financial implications of tariffs and the war in Iran.

The March 24 session was deliberately narrow in scope. Commissioners focused on requested expenditures and organizational needs but did not take up the new property value assessments or any proposed property tax rates. That conversation is slated for May 5, when County Manager Avril Pinder will present the recommended budget and a proposed tax rate.

A capital-heavy scenario presented at a January work session could lead Buncombe to deploy up to $66.1 million from the general fund on capital projects by fiscal year 2031-32. Supporting that level of spending on infrastructure, from parking deck repairs to new greenways, would require property taxes to rise by nearly 6 cents per $100 of assessed value, a nearly 11% increase over the current rate of 54.66 cents.

As of January 2026, the county has more than 60 adopted capital projects totaling around $200 million. Looking ahead, commissioners are planning a seven-year Capital Improvement Plan with over 80 proposed projects estimated to cost about $405 million.

The road to budget adoption still has several steps. Commissioners are scheduled to hold the next budget work session on April 16, with a public hearing on May 19 and budget adoption set for June 2. Commissioners will not vote on the spending plan until after that public hearing. The budget process can be followed on the county's website, and all budget meetings are viewable via the county's Facebook page.