Orange County proposes 2025-26 budget, targets social services, employee investment –

The proposed Orange County budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year calls for $311.9 million in total funding, targeting social services, increased employee compensation and continuation of funding for schools. 

One budget priority was to maintain the County’s investment into social safety net services, particularly for housing and health-related services. 

The proposed budget would allocate an additional $70,000 to the Emergency Housing Assistance program, which provides financial support to households who experienced an event affecting their ability to pay rent; an additional $40,000 to supply vaccines throughout the county; and an additional $25,000 toward the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness budget in order to continue the Cold Weather Cots program, amongst other increased and continued spending on housing initiatives. 

“When the broader economy is not doing well, or there’s uncertainty in the broader economy, the demand for County services — particularly those safety net services — increases,” Travis Myren, the county manager for Orange County, said. “And so, that’s why we wanted to be sure to preserve and, to the extent possible, enhance those services based on an uncertain future.”

Increased investment in County employees was also a priority of the budget. The proposed budget includes $1.79 million in funding for a 2 percent wage increase for all County employees. Additionally, a total of $1.46 million is allocated to address increased retirement contributions, health insurance costs and dental insurance costs related to inflation. The purpose of the investment in employees is to help retain and attract highly qualified employees, Myren said.

“Based on some investments that we’ve made in the past, our turnover rate — that’s the rate at which positions are vacated — has decreased from like 15.5 [percent] last year to 8.5 percent in this fiscal year,” Myren said. “So we know that those investments are improving our retention rates overall.”

Both Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools are funded through the County budget, and, this year, the proposed budget only allocates funding for both districts’ requested continuation funding, as opposed to funding both the continuation and expansion budgets. 

The districts’ continuation budgets allocate funding for continued operations, increased employee wages and retirement contributions, while the expansion budgets included funding for initiatives such as increased classified and certified staff supplements, increased bus driver pay and creating counselor positions. 

Overall, the budget was designed to be flexible in anticipation of potential federal funding cuts. The County was judicious in estimating revenue projections to ensure that they did not overspend, but potentially going beyond these projections would allow flexibility for additional spending, Myren said.