After Cary’s town manager resigned last fall amid allegations of financial mismanagement (among other things), the town’s remaining leaders pledged a series of reforms, including a more transparent budget process.
“This budget process will probably be the most robust budget process we’ve ever had,” mayor Harold Weinbrecht announced in his State of Cary address in February. More broadly, he pledged that Cary would come out on the other side of the town manager debacle as a national model for government accountability: “We’ll probably have the strongest guardrails of anybody.”
Town leaders commissioned an independent investigation into the former town manager’s activities and submitted to scrutiny from the state auditor and the Wake County District Attorney’s Office. They set about responding to 80-plus public records requests. And most recently, they debuted a new kind of event, a budget open house, to explain the municipal budget to residents and gather their input.
There are some nonnegotiables in the town’s roughly $500 million budget, like paying the staff of 1,200 and funding essential departments. But there are also plenty of choices to make; investments in parks, greenways, staff pay raises, affordable housing, or public safety reflect the town’s values.
On Tuesday, I went to the budget open house to find out what all the fuss was about. Inside the Cary Senior Center, a phalanx of town staffers had set up booths with posters and handouts breaking down what each department does. Weinbrecht was there, along with several town council members.
Here are some takeaways from Cary’s budget open house.
Anecdotally, People Still Trust the Town of Cary with Their Tax Dollars.
Several attendees told INDY that they don’t hold the former town manager’s alleged financial misconduct (to the tune of over $1 million) against the town.
“It doesn’t change my trust, because I think the town is bigger than one person,” said Patrick Murray, a resident who volunteers on Cary’s Information Services Advisory Board.
“I give them a world of credit,” agreed a resident named Randy. “There wasn’t some cover-up, they were very up-front about it.”
Residents Named High-Quality Town Services as Their Top Budget Priority
During the budget open house, residents were asked to fill out a survey ranking a list of priorities including affordability, community safety, environmental stewardship, fiscal responsibility, high-performing staff, maintaining service levels, and new capital investment.
Most of the attendees I talked to named “maintaining service levels” as their top priority. And they said they’d willingly pay more taxes or support more dense development if that’s what it takes to fund seamless trash pickup, 311 service, greenway maintenance, and more.
The official results of the survey aren’t available yet. Town council members did a similar ranking exercise at their annual retreat in February, and chose community safety as their top budget priority, followed by new capital investment, investing in staff, and affordability.
Pressure Still Exists to Raise Taxes
Cary’s property tax rate is currently the lowest of any Wake County municipality at 34 cents per $100 of assessed value. The town is able to set the rate so low in part because property values are relatively high compared to other Wake municipalities. This is especially true post-2024, when a property revaluation raised the assessed value of all residential property in Cary from $21.5 billion to $33.4 billion, a 55% increase.
Last year, the Cary Town Council unanimously voted to raise property taxes by 1.5 cents per $100 valuation. Town staff explained at the time that the bump was necessary to accommodate inflation, offset plateauing population growth, and fund updates to aging infrastructure. Those same forces are still at play this year.
During the budget open house, assistant town manager Danna Widmar gave a presentation explaining that budgets require trade-offs. If you want a community with low density and stable service levels, expect a tax increase. If you want a lower tax rate, you have to cut services or allow for more dense development.
Council member Michelle Craig put it even more simply: “You either raise taxes or you take something away.”
“For me, I’m happy to pay for better service levels,” Cary resident Narendra Aggarwal told the INDY.
Other residents may still be reeling from the sticker shock of the 2024 revaluation, but Widmar said Aggarwal’s sentiment is consistent with what she’s heard from many other residents.
“It depends on the individual, but most people live in Cary because they like the service level and the community that we live in,” she said. “They’d like to be able to maintain what they’re used to.”
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