Why two cents?
The Current Situation
Asheville City Schools are facing a $7 Million dollar budget shortfall for our 2025/2026 school year. If we don’t act now, this will mean cuts to an already underfunded school budget.
How did we get here?
Our schools are funded through a combination of Buncombe County, State, and Federal Funds. In addition, residents within the Asheville City School District pay a local supplemental tax that goes directly towards paying ACS teachers, staff, and supporting programs that enhance student learning opportunities.
For the past several years, the funding ACS has received from the county has remained the same while the costs of providing a quality education to our students has continued to rise.
Earlier this year, because of Hurricane Helene, Buncombe County has actually taken back a previously promised $4 Million dollars (roughly 13% of ACS’ annual budget) further dwindling the money our schools have access to.
This is unacceptable and does not set our children or teachers up for success.
In 2021, our supplemental property taxes in Asheville fell from 12 cents per $100 of value to 10.62 cents per $100 of property value.
We’re asking the Buncombe County Commissioners to reinstate the 2 cents for our ACS district supplemental tax. By doing so, we will provide a strong foundation for our public schools.
How do we stack up?
According to a study done by the Public School Forum of North Carolina, Buncombe county is currently ranked 79th of 100 North Carolina counties as it relates to “relative funding effort”.
The “relative funding effort” shows how much of a county’s revenue is being allocated towards education.
How will that affect my property taxes?
This section is meant to provide estimates only and is not setup to understand or know about your personal tax situation. More detailed information on your property can be found on the Buncombe County Tax Assessment webpage.
For the individual household, here’s a rough estimate on how this would work. For reinstating the property tax from 10.62 to 12 cents per $100 of assessed value on a $350,000 home:
First, convert the home value to units of $100: $350,000 ÷ $100 = 3,500 units
Then multiply by the tax rate: 3,500 × $0.0138 = $48.30
This would mean an additional $48.30 per year in property taxes for a $350,000 home if the tax rate were increased from 10.62 cents to 12 cents per $100 of assessed value.
What makes our schools different?
The amount the state provides our school system each year is based on calculations related to how many students are enrolled.
However, these formulas don’t reflect what is actually needed for our students. For example, the state does not provide any money to pay music and elective teachers. ACS pays the salaries and benefits for all 22 of these specials teachers in our district. These are just some of the positions that our local tax dollars pay for.
In total, ACS’ supplemental tax is used to fund roughly 58 positions that our state funds do not cover. See below for a breakdown from superintendent Dr. Maggie Fehrman’s recent budget presentation.
