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Wilkes County adopts budget review schedule, completes priorities exercise
Summary
At a March 13 budget planning work session, Wilkes County staff presented a preliminary financial report and peer-group analysis, and commissioners completed a sticker‑dot exercise to identify top budget priorities ahead of a May public hearing and June budget adoption.
Wilkes County commissioners met March 13, 2025, at the Yadkin Valley Event Center in Wilkesboro for a budget planning work session that included a preliminary financial update, a market and peer-group briefing and a priorities exercise to guide the 2025-26 budget.
County Finance Director Chris Huffman presented the preliminary February 2025 report on tax collections and sales tax receipts. Staff from FHN Financial Municipal Advisors provided a peer-group comparison covering 2024 and a county-level comparative analysis dating to 2017. County Manager John Yates gave a brief capital projects progress report.
John Yates and Chris Huffman presented a proposed budget timeline: nonprofit and county department submissions due March 21, 2025; the proposed budget to be delivered to the Board May 6, 2025; commissioners to hold work sessions May 13–June 3, 2025; a public hearing on the proposed budget May 20, 2025; and anticipated budget adoption June 3, 2025.
Facilitator Rebecca Troutman led a budget-priorities exercise asking commissioners to place three sticker dots to indicate their top areas of focus. Categories shown to the board included Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), economic development, housing, nonprofits, public safety, recreation, a revenue-neutral tax rate, K‑12 schools and Wilkes Community College. The transcript records placement of sticker dots as a set of asterisks adjacent to categories (raw placement as recorded in the minutes); staff said the exercise is intended to help them develop a master plan for the upcoming budget.
No formal votes or budget allocations were adopted at the work session. Next steps recorded in the session minutes were staff continuing budget preparation guided by the presented timeline and the board’s stated priorities. The session adjourned at 8:06 P.M.
