Proposed tax amendments on November’s ballot could mean significant revenue losses for Franklin and Granville counties, threatening funding for essential public services.
By Alexandra Sirota
County Beacon
Every time lawmakers push another round of tax cuts for people in corner offices and wealthy corporations, rural communities are told to accept less: fewer teachers, fewer doctors, fewer services, and fewer opportunities for the next generation.
That’s why so many small towns are disappearing. Local hospitals close. Main streets struggle. Schools consolidate or shut down. Fire departments are hollowed out. Young families move away because they can’t find opportunities nearby.
These are not inevitable changes — they are policy choices made by politicians that affect our rural economies.
But this election cycle (early voting runs October 15-31 and Election Day is November 3), voters in Franklin and Granville counties, along with other rural counties across the state, have the power to put their communities, their neighbors and their families’ well-being first by voting against three proposed constitutional changes that will be on their ballot.
One amendment would cap income tax rates for millionaires and profitable companies but provide no new tax cuts for residents. Another would allow Raleigh lawmakers to set local property taxes. And the third would require photo identification for voters – even those serving in the military abroad or displaced by disaster.
All three would block people from having a say in the policies that shape our daily lives.
While the voter ID law would make it harder for North Carolinians to cast their vote at the ballot box, the tax amendments would make it impossible to choose to fix any of the issues that end up costing us and making our daily lives more difficult. Together, they place limits on the plans we can make to shape a better future.
The property tax levy limit is an attack on local control over funding decisions: property tax in Franklin County funds HALF of the local budget and accounts for more than 60% of the local funding in Granville County available for core services like emergency response, public libraries, parks and schools.
If the most severe limits on property tax collections are put in place by Raleigh politicians, it will impact everything from the response time of EMS units to trash collection to basic maintenance of water mains and sewer systems.
Public schools could see some of the biggest cuts. Right now, Franklin and Granville counties are using local dollars to fund 10 teaching positions and roughly a quarter of public school operations overall.
Franklin and Granville counties are rapidly changing as growth from nearby metro regions—and the lack of affordable living in those areas—puts pressure on all of our public services.
A changing population combined with persistent poverty and declining health outcomes brings rising costs. Local leaders will need the flexibility to thoughtfully respond, connect people to good jobs and build out the infrastructure of opportunity in the counties.
Taking away local policymakers’ ability to set local budgets—as the property tax amendment would do—and giving that power to Raleigh politicians won’t keep costs for families down. It won’t help balance the demands of more people and changing land use with protection of the quality of life that has kept generations here and called them back home.
Instead, it will make it harder to keep communities safe, care for our families and educate our children. And it will give you less power to shape the decisions that county commissioners and local officials make. After all, our local elected officials are closest to the problems we face, closest to the solutions and more accountable when classrooms are even more overcrowded and emergency response times start to slip.
Not only do state lawmakers want more control over local budgeting decisions, but they want to provide less help even as they shift more costs onto local government. State funds provide roughly $1 in every $10 locally. But because the income tax amendment permanently caps the taxes that can be levied on millionaires and out-of-state shareholders of big corporations, it will leave state lawmakers with limited, worse options to fund our communities’ priorities.
So, we should be clear about what these tax amendments do: Funnel dollars to out-of-state interests and the already well-off while costs rise and needs go unmet. This isn’t just a strategy to help special interests – it destabilizes communities.
Instead of more tax giveaways to those at the top at the expense of public services, we should invest in keeping rural communities alive and growing: strengthening local schools, protecting rural hospitals, supporting small businesses and farmers, expanding broadband, and creating jobs people can raise a family on.
The tax amendments on the ballot in November will make that harder. That’s why a vote AGAINST will protect our communities.
Alexandra Sirota is the Executive Director of the NC Budget & Tax Center, where she has followed budget and tax policy in North Carolina for nearly two decades.
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