While a public hearing on the city’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year is scheduled for June 2, several people discussed the financial plan during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s Roanoke Rapids City Council meeting.
The proposed $21,113,732 budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes a 4-cent tax increase and a $1,601,054 infusion from the city’s undesignated fund balance.
Disbanding the police department
Ephraim Brodsky cited a report by Richard Boylan, a Rice University professor of economics, whose article, “Should Cities Disband Their Police Departments?” appeared in the Journal of Urban Economics.
“Boylan’s study suggests that disbanding a police department can reduce costs and harmful outcomes without increasing overall crime,” he said. “That means council should not judge this by habit or by who speaks the loudest, but by what works best for a small community that is always under a spotlight. The real question is not whether law enforcement matters; it is whether the current structure is the best and most affordable way to provide public safety for the whole city.”
If the city chooses dissolution, he said, “The city gains breathing room. That gives us a chance to lower the tax burden, protect basic services, invest in parks, roads, and services that promote civic engagement — the things families actually see and feel in daily life.”
Brodsky said the city should be honest about the larger picture. “All of the public schools in the region have been facing sharply declining enrollment for the past decade, which is another sign that our community needs a stronger long-term strategy — not just the same old structure.”
He said that raises a fair question about why the city should keep paying for overlapping services and duplicate costs “when we are already struggling so much at the local level.”
“This is a hard decision,” he said, “but the faces matter. Transferring law enforcement to the Halifax County sheriff is not about weakening the city — it’s about making this city more stable, more affordable, and better prepared for what comes next.”
In the gallery: Brodsky, Davis, Williams and Forbes
‘Two things that brought this town down’
Joey Davis said there were two things that brought the city down.
The first was the cotton mills. “The greatest thing in the world was the unions coming to town. The union came to town and looked at the mills. They shut them down.”
Then there was the former Randy Parton Theatre — now Weldon Mills Theatre. “I was out there when it was built,” he said. “We had to have this land from Weldon. We needed to annex this land. We had to have it for Roanoke Rapids. So we got it. It failed.”
The new owners “got a steal of a deal,” he said. “If it had been sold at a regular price, look what those millions of dollars could be doing for this city — fixing up different things. What really gets me now is we’re paying the debt. You ride by there and — lo and behold — there’s only the theater building.”
Rising house values
“I know y’all are talking about raising taxes up, but I went through a few of my rental houses just to see how much my tax value went up in four years,” said Troy Williams.
His house on Seventh Street went up $20,000. His house on Hunting Ridge Road went up $65,000. He said his house on Washington Street went up $61,000, while his house on Eighth Street went up $36,000. “What I don’t understand is where all of this money has gone. I look at what I paid five years ago and what I pay today and it’s almost double.”
When he bought his house on Hunting Ridge Road in 2007, he was paying $1,119 a year in property taxes. In 2022 it was $3,162. Last year it was $4,075. “That’s four times as much as what I was paying when I first moved into my house 19 years ago.”
He said he owns 30 houses. “People think all this is falling on the homeowners, but when your taxes go up like this it hurts the renters too. Because I’m paying three times as much on my stuff, that means I’ve got to trickle it down and I don’t like doing that because I do care.”
He spent $20,000 on fixing a house he was getting $700 a month for. “Now I get $900 a month so I spent $20,000 to get $200 a month.”
He said his other rental houses averaged an increase of between $5,000 and $15,000. “That’s basically what I want to say is I just don’t understand where all this money is going.”
Roanoke Valley Rescue Squad
Brian Forbes, commander of the Roanoke Valley Rescue Squad, requested its 1-cent per $100 tax rate be raised by 2 cents. “I know this has got to be the worst time to ask, but the squad desperately needs that 2 cents we had asked for earlier in the year. I know that you have got some difficult decisions, but Roanoke Valley does provide a fantastic value for the dollars we get.”
The problem, he said, is that the squad doesn’t have the funding to replace aging equipment. Its first-out truck is 20 years old and its first-out boat is 44 years old.
He said when a call came in last week about a kayaking mishap on Roanoke Rapids Lake, the boat wouldn’t run. “We had to depend on outside agencies. It took a couple of days to get parts, get things together, and get the boat running. It does run now but we’re responding to these emergencies on a boat that’s 44 years old.”
He said the 2-cent bump is vital to the squad’s operations. “If I didn't believe in the squad and I didn’t believe the squad had value for the citizens, I definitely wouldn’t be speaking here.”
