The town of Wrightsville Beach’s proposed budget, expected to be presented to the public in April, won’t include a tax increase, officials said at a budget workshop in late March.

“The budget was created using the same tax rate as FY 26 (5.31 cents per $100 assessed tax value),” said Haynes Brigman, Wrightsville Beach town manager, to the Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen during the March 24 session. “Despite the challenges and the pressures that we have, we are going to be able to make it work with the revenues generated.”

He said the $19 million budget also proposes no major fee changes, parking fees are already set, and “there aren’t any major service changes or adjustments across all the departments, meaning that we’re not adding any significant service delivery or outputs. We’re also not reducing any or taking away anything that we currently do. There may be some tweaks or small enhancements here or there, but no significant service changes.”

Brigman said revenue continues to be a challenge.

“We obviously are very limited in how we can generate revenue because our island is mostly built out, so we rely on redevelopment of existing parcels that bring an incremental tax revenue base increase to us each year,” he said.

Brigman also pointed out to the board that the town’s tax base dropped $135 million after Wrightsville Beach homeowners successfully appealed tax revaluations that took effect Jan. 1, 2025.

“So that’s pretty significant, roughly $70,000 in ad valorem tax revenue for us,” he said. “It’s just something we’re going to have to watch. … My political science brain is telling me let’s hope that’s not a trend because if we look out three years from now, when they go and do another revaluation, if that is the trend, you’re actually looking at our tax base probably decreasing.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he added, “and maybe it’s not as big of a trend as maybe it appears to be.”

In the budget discussed at the March 24 workshop, Brigman told town board members about some areas of cost savings, including holiday expenses, in the draft budget.

“Based on the feedback that you guys provided us, we knocked out $340,000 of that total (around $400,000) that we had asked for,” he said.

Brigman said the town has two different components of holiday expenses.

“We have an ongoing annual expense that we now have with a contractor to store and then install the lighting for us because our water and sewer crews used to be the ones that did that for us, and when we lost that crew, we lost the ability to do that in-house,” he said.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and the town finalized an agreement in 2024 to consolidate water and sewer systems, which took effect in September. Under the agreement, CFPUA assumed ownership and management of Wrightsville Beach’s water and sewer infrastructure.

A complete recording of the town’s final budget workshop in March is available online at vimeo.com/towb.

Brigman said a public hearing on the budget and its adoption could take place at aldermen meetings in May.