Wake County commissioners have delayed the new justice center by one year as they look to weathering the current economic downturn.
According to Wake County Manager David Cooke, the county’s budget plan will primarily focus on funding the Wake County Public School System on a project-by-project basis. The plan is a response to the decline in this year’s property and sales tax.
According to Cooke, the once healthy 5.5 percent average growth in property tax shrunk to 3.5 percent in 2008 and he says he anticipates just 2.5 percent this year. Cooks says he expects the county’s sales tax to stay flat or decline in the next year. Sales tax revenue normally grows about 7.5 percent a year, according to the county manager.
As a result of revising assumptions, a freeze has been placed on capital funding to all open space and library projects until 2011.
The city is set to issue a bond sale by March of 2009, containing $100 million in public school bonds and $35 million for Wake Tech projects.
