Nikolai Mather: Hi Meg! Okay, so, you actually aren't just the interim county manager – you're also still serving as finance director. Tell me a little bit about those roles, because they're pretty different buckets, right?
Meg Blue: So they're not the same bucket in that as the finance director, my job is to present information, right? The county manager is the role that comes up with the ideas, asks the questions, and then we provide financial information for them to make a decision based on and so combining them has actually kind of been helpful, because it's made the process a little more efficient. There are those separations for a lot of reasons. You know, a finance director doesn't always know everything that's going on in every single department, right? Like a county manager would, so that has helped, because I have a better understanding of what's happening in some of these departments, to better make recommendations to the board and to show, like, to present the financial information in a way that they can make an informed decision.
NM: What's the workload like?
MB: It's a lot, but it's always been a lot.
With the departure of Michael Silverman, there were a few adjustments that we had to make, because ultimately, the budget presentation, or proposed budget, comes from the county manager. In all reality, we prepare a lot of it, and he just would give a final say. So the final say kind of was a coordination between me and the board this year, because I'm wearing multiple hats.
NM: Yes – and Michael Silverman was the former county manager – the commission fired him in April and appointed you to be interim. But there's been some other leadership changes too – I know Dr. Jimmy Tate joined the commission earlier that month – how has that impacted this year's budget process?
MB: There's been a lot of very good questions, which I always welcome questions, because it means everyone's trying to understand more about the process, because it's a lot to understand at once.
As far as how this process has been different... it is a little more delayed this year only because of all the questions and some of the stuff coming up at the last minute, making sure we have all the ducks in a row. So typically, we would do it at our first June meeting, but because of some of the salary changes that came out of the budget meetings, we moved it to the second June meeting, because our salary projection process is pretty involved.
NM: How has the commission responded to the proposal? Like, what are the questions?
MB: A lot of the questions are addressing salaries. A lot of the questions are making sure that we can get good people, even though, you know... when one local government does a salary study, then the next one has to do one, because you're competing with each other, right?
And the talent pool, or the pool in general, is only so deep, and so if you're all competing for the same potential candidates, you got to stay competitive in order to be able to attract them, and we have to provide certain services. So a lot of it has been making sure that our minimum salaries are keeping up with others, and there's been a lot of reclassifications for that purpose, and it's been really good. I think employees will be really happy with it. We did it with no tax increases, no budget appropriations from the general fund.
There is a significant appropriation from the debt service fund, but that was planned. We increased our tax rate a couple of years ago, ahead of having to pay the debt service for the school bond and law enforcement center and DHHS building. So that was planned.
NM: Yes. Another thing coming down the pipe is Pender County's revaluation next year. Pender hasn't had a reval since 2019. What are you anticipating there?
MB: There's a lot of things to consider about a revaluation, and there's a lot of political things to consider too. You know, how do the people of Pender County feel about it?
And there's a lot of education that has to be done in a reval cycle. People don't all understand what a reval means and what it does. A lot of people automatically assume that when there's a reval, their taxes are going to go up, which may or may not be true, but it depends on what you do with your tax rate as to whether your taxes actually go up. A reval just means your value was this, and now it's this, but you still have to do the math on your tax rate to figure out what your tax bill will be.
NM: Yes. And it's been longer here than in other counties – Brunswick and New Hanover do revaluations every four years. Whereas Pender is on, what, a seven or eight year cycle?
MB: So we were on an eight year cycle. We moved it up a year because we acknowledge the fact that our values are so dated, plus they also were impacted by Hurricane Florence significantly.
NM: Right.
MB: You know, we're very far along in our reval cycle, so we're stretching those pennies just as far as we can. They're on more frequent reval cycles, so they don't feel that impact like we do, but they have a lot of other things that they're that they have to juggle when they do their balancing process that maybe we don't have to deal with.
NM: Last question: the commission previously said they were doing a nationwide search for their next permanent county manager. Will you be going up for it?
MB: That's good question right now. I am enjoying wearing both hats. I think it's been really helpful. I know that you know, getting through budget and now getting ready to go through audit, it's a lot, but so far I have I've enjoyed doing both.
NM: That's great to hear.
The Pender County Board of Commissioners will hold a vote on the budget immediately following a public hearing on June 16th. Click here to learn more about Pender County's budget proposed budget.
