The city of Asheville isn’t alone in dealing with a substantial gap between expenses and revenues for the next fiscal year. During an April 16 budget work session, Buncombe County officials estimated that general fund revenue for fiscal 2026-27 would run about $41.1 million short of county government spending without a property tax increase.
Buncombe’s projected expenses of $487.1 million are lower than the initial estimate of $504 million shared in March. Budget Director John Hudson said the county had managed to find savings through lapsed salaries, operations cuts, and eliminating five of the 37 new staff positions that county departments had requested.
Those expenses, however, are still about $49 million higher than Buncombe’s current budget year. And Hudson projected that county revenues would only go up by about $8.5 million overall without an increase to the effective property tax rate…