The Currituck County Board of Commissioners adopted the county's annual budget at its June 11 meeting, approving manager-recommended amendments that include a phased implementation of a countywide pay study, funding for teacher supplements, and a $50,000 capital allocation for Wave School.

The budget vote followed a separate, board-approved plan to implement the pay-study recommendations more quickly for long-serving employees and a procedural vote to recuse Commissioner Kevin McCord from discussion and votes that directly affected the sheriff's budget and aspects of the pay-study implementation.

Why it matters: The adopted changes increase recurring personnel costs and adjust user fees recommended in earlier studies; commissioners emphasized maintaining tax stability while addressing pay compression and retention for county employees. Commissioners also discussed solid-waste availability fees that were set by a prior rate study and will rise modestly by user-fee adjustments.

Key facts: The board approved the manager's revised implementation of the pay study, which the manager's office estimated would raise costs by $144,323 across all funds, including $70,123 to the general fund. Small, targeted increases listed in the meeting include an $881 increase for the Ocean Sands Water and Sewer District (Fund 60) and $4,727.74 for the Tourism Development Authority (Fund 15). Staff also presented estimates for an accelerated implementation option that the meeting recorded as raising multi-year implementation costs into the low millions across all funds.

Procedure and recusals: Because Commissioner Kevin McCord acknowledged a personal financial interest tied to sheriff's pay decisions, the board voted to recuse him from discussion and voting on the sheriff's budget and on the pay-study implementation while he was absent from the room. The board conducted a mock vote on the two items in his absence, then took the final budget vote after he returned.

Other allocations and context: The board included recurring teacher supplements in the adopted budget and set a capital appropriation of $50,000 for Wave School (to be appropriated from fund balance as a capital transfer). Commissioners noted prior actions to adjust sheriff's pay separately in recent years and discussed the trade-offs of using reserves vs. recurring revenue to fund compensation changes. Several commissioners reiterated they would not support property-tax increases.

Process notes: The board approved the recommended pay plan that reassigns positions to market-based pay grades and adopted an implementation schedule that extends service progression beyond year eight to recognize long-term incumbents. County staff said the implementation schedule may be adjusted in future budgets if additional revenue becomes available (for example, from a possible local sales-tax measure discussed earlier by commissioners).

What the record shows: The meeting transcript records voice votes and motions as passed; individual roll-call tallies were not recorded in the transcript. The manager and finance staff presented appended budget detail and corrected an administrative entry error discovered in the communications overtime line in the appendix during the meeting.

Looking ahead: Commissioners said the pay-study implementation can be revisited in future budgets and that adoption now does not preclude adjusting the schedule if revenue conditions change. The board indicated it will provide department heads talking points to explain pay changes to employees if the board-adopted plan is finalized.