A look at 2023-24 budgets for Guilford and Forsyth counties

It’s July, which means it is budget season for municipal governments. In the past couple of weeks, both Guilford County and Forsyth County have passed their proposed budgets for the 2023-24 fiscal year which will begin on July 1. Greensboro and Winston-Salem have also filed their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. One significant change in this year’s budgets includes payouts to local municipalities from the recent national opioid settlement. 

Here are some takeaways from each of the counties. Find the full budgets online as linked in the headings below. 

GUILFORD COUNTY

• The General Fund Appropriation for 2023-24 is $840.2 million, which is a $57 million increase from last year
• The general property tax will remain the same at 73.05 cents per $100 of property valuation
• The budget allocates $333.9 million for Education (the largest segment of the budget) – an increase of $6.9 million over the total allocation in FY 2022-23. $262 million of that will go towards Guilford County Schools. $15.4 million will go towards raises for classified employees at Guilford County Schools. Another million will fund 10 new school nurse positions in the district. 
• The second largest section of the budget is allocated towards the “Successful People” designation which includes fundings for behavioral health, and the county’s Health & Human Services department which will have a budget of $143.6 million. This includes funding to hire 10 school nurses to increase the total number of school nurses in the county to 66 or 1 nurse for every 1.8 schools. The budget also includes fundings for a new mobile health clinic program. Additionally, the department aims to hire four social workers to make up a new community team that will care for people in non-emergency situations.
• The total funds allocated for law enforcement (the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office) will total $86.8 million, which marks an 8 percent increase compared to the 2022-23 year.

FORSYTH COUNTY

• The total budget proposed is $569 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year. This marks a $36.3 million increase, or 6.8 percent increase, compared to last year
• The proposed balanced budget maintains the current property tax rate of 67.78 cent per $100 of property value
• Like in Guilford County, the largest portion of the county budget is taken up by school funding which totals $181.2 million, or 31.8 percent. This reflects a 4.5 percent increase from last year. This includes budgeting for salary adjustments for classified staff, and increases related to school police officers.
• Funding for public safety will total $97.9 million and take up 17.2 percent of the budget. This includes the sheriff’s office ($69.6 million), emergency services ($26.1 million), the Family Justice Center (S407,935), the animal shelter ($1.3 million) and emergency management ($500,730). The funding reflects a $528,388 decrease to funding for the sheriff’s office compared to last year —  Personal Services are increasing $2,675,954, or 5.4 percent while Operating Costs are decreasing by $2,435,671.