Leaders set priorities, then determine the spending necessary to meet their objectives.
When it comes to governing, however, Davidson long ago left conventionality to its municipal neighbors. And it has done so unapologetically. Of course, in a flush economy, those decisions elicited little or no call for apology because they raised nary a ripple in the tax rate.
But a recession for the ages and a plunge into the broadband business have fed a financial undertow and triggered a wave of taxpayer discontent in a community accustomed to calm waters.
Davidson’s political “progressiveness” — nurtured by its longtime chief executive, Town Manager Leamon Brice — has been hailed as groundbreaking by largely left-leaning municipal government wonks across the country, who cheered the town’s efforts to save trees, provide affordable housing and keep the community walkable, among other initiatives.
The financial burden of MI-Connection has become much like the dye injected in a patient before a CT scan.
The debt and continued operational losses of the three-year-old company have exposed erosion in the town’s financial health caused by once innocuous objectives. That exposure comes only after the town board raised property taxes and dipped into the town’s reserve fund for more than one-half million dollars this past summer to send $2 million in bailout money to MI-Connectio for the second straight year.
That $2 million carves deeply into the town’s operational budget of $9 million for this year. In fact, it’s the biggest line item in the budget. But smaller items — those expenditures that have helped define Davidson — add up, too, in terms of total dollars, and in pennies on the tax rate. That the town board unanimously agreed to keep them all (commissioners only differed on how to pay for them) while also raising taxes says something about Davidson. It also has Davidsonians saying plenty about paying the premium to keep them.
Here are some of those items, many of which are unique for a town with a population of less than 10,000: $323,310 in town salaries and operational expenses for “economic development” inside Davidson, most of it geared to the few square blocks that make up the downtown area.
$280,000 to buy two unfinished houses for the town’s affordable housing inventory (taken from the town’s reserve fund).
$50,000 to non-profit organizations also funded through private donations, awarded via a third party committee rather than by direct decisions of the town board.
$41,000 for a Healthy Living and Wellness Coordinator, a position added this year.
$29,000 to subsidize Davidson Community Players (the difference between the debt service the town pays on DPC’s Armour Street Theater, and DPC’s lease payments to the town).
$21,600 for a part-time Affordable Housing Coordinator.
$13,050 for an otherwise privately funded “Reading Garden” near the town’s county library branch.
Those items add up to $758,000, which would equal about five cents on the tax rate of 35 cents per $100 of property.
What those five cents represent is in the eye of the beholder. The question becomes, will commissioners’ commitment to keep collecting some or all of that eight cents put them in the eye of the storm on election day?
