Taxpayer Brief · City of Asheville
Where your city tax dollars go in FY2027
The City of Asheville budget for July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 — the one in effect now
Adopted June 9, 2026 (4-3 vote) · Prepared 2026-06-29 · Updated 2026-07-16: county reverted to 2021 values; city rate amended to 50.78¢ on 2021 values at the July 15 special meeting (now final); updated 2026-08-15 with the value your bill is figured on · Adopted figures
This is the budget that actually governs the year ahead. Asheville is spending $275.8 million across all funds, up about 7.5% from last year, and it raised property taxes again to close a gap left by inflation, rising debt and healthcare costs, and the still-unfolding costs of Tropical Storm Helene. The council split 4-3 over it.
Update — July 15: the county reverted to 2021 values; the city amended its rate to 50.78¢
A new state law put Buncombe back on 2021 property values for this year's bills unless the county cut its rate to 40¢ or less, which it declined to do. On July 14 the county amended its own rate to 61.54¢ on that older base, and Asheville City Schools to 11.75¢. Because the city taxes the same county tax roll, the City of Asheville had to re-set its FY2027 rate on 2021 values too. At a special council meeting on July 15, 2026 it did, amending the rate to 50.78¢ — the figure that raises the same revenue on the older, lower 2021 values that the 37.69¢ set in June would have raised on the shelved 2026 values. The city figures below now use the amended 50.78¢ rate on 2021 values; the county and schools rates are the amended 2021-value rates adopted July 14.
Read the tax rate carefully — it is an increase
The city set its rate at 37.69¢ in June, priced on the 2026 revaluation the state has since shelved. When bills reverted to 2021 values, the city amended its rate on July 15 to 50.78¢ to fund the same budget on that older, lower base. The honest yardstick is that amended rate against last year's 44.19¢ city rate on the same 2021 value: on an unchanged assessment the city share is up 6.59 cents, about 14.9%. On the $350,000 median-priced home the city used as its example on the old values, that is about $230 a year, or $19 a month.
Estimate your bill — inside the City of Asheville
For a home inside the City of Asheville — city + county, plus Asheville City Schools for a home in that district, on the amended 2021-value rates (city 50.78¢ adopted July 15, county 61.54¢ and schools 11.75¢ adopted July 14): a combined 124.07¢ per $100 inside the Asheville City Schools district and 112.32¢ outside it. Not every city address is in the Asheville City Schools district: a January 2025 study of merging the two school systems put the city's population at about 94,000 and the population zoned for Asheville City Schools at about 43,000. If your last bill has no Asheville City Schools line, choose "No" above and the schools row drops to $0. Excludes exemptions or deferments, separate stormwater/solid-waste/water fees, and the Downtown Asheville Business Improvement District rate of 8.77¢, which council reverted to its prior-year figure at the same July 15 meeting and which applies only inside the BID. An estimate — use the assessed value on your own last tax bill.
Where the general fund goes
The general fund ($187.5M) is the part of the budget your taxes mostly pay for. The split below is by type of cost, from the city's adopted budget book. The clear point: it is people-heavy.
Personnel (pay + benefits) dominates the general fund — about 66 cents on the dollar in the adopted budget ($123.9M of $187.5M). Public safety is the largest service area: the adopted budget gives fire $44.2M and police $41.8M, together about 46 cents of each general-fund dollar.
The other roughly $88M of the $275.8M all-funds total is mostly the enterprise funds — chiefly Water Resources and stormwater, billed on your utility statement, plus parking — which run on their own fees, not the tax rate. The city's multi-year capital projects (parks, infrastructure, affordable housing) are approved outside that total, though the yearly cash and debt payments toward them sit inside it. The general capital program is funded in part by voter-approved GO bonds, and your property taxes repay that debt over time. That repayment is part of what the general fund's Capital & debt line above carries. This brief centers on the tax-supported general fund.
Where the money comes from
These revenue and spending line items are from the city's adopted budget book. The manager's plan already included about $9M in cost cuts (the items under "what got cut," below) to close the year's gap; Council's own changes were modest — trimming the rate from 37.84¢ to 37.69¢ and restoring the 401(k) match. The firm, adopted figures are the $187.5M general fund and the rate: council set 37.69¢ in June on the 2026 values, since amended to 50.78¢ on 2021 values after the state freeze.
What's new — and what got cut
- Fire (AFD): a 4th shift planned to start in August 2026 with existing firefighters, so they work fewer hours a week at a higher hourly rate, and continued funding for the REST team.
- Police (APD): the general-fund budget rises to $41.8 million from $37.0 million and pays for 22 officer positions that were authorized but unfunded. Changes made at adoption took out about $150,000 to match the police academy's start date and moved $226,000 of downtown policing costs onto sales-tax money in the Business Improvement District fund.
- Pay: a 2.8% cost-of-living raise; the council restored the 1% 401(k) match (about $660,000 across all funds) the manager had proposed cutting.
- Cuts to balance: 16+ vacant positions eliminated; community-center hours rolled back toward pre-COVID levels; less mowing, litter pickup, and landscaping; the annual public-art fund contribution paused.
Housing, shelter & neighborhoods
- A dedicated affordable-housing staff position, a funded Neighborhood Matching Grant Program, and a city contribution to the Buncombe County Homeowner grant program.
- The city is working on added support for Code Purple cold-weather sheltering, plus bus service with an on-site crisis counselor.
- On the capital side, $20 million for affordable housing sits in the voter-approved 2024 GO bonds (one of four $20M program areas in the $80M package), being programmed now across the multi-year capital plan and repaid by your property taxes — separate from, and larger than, the operating housing lines above.
- Still paused: the general fund's $500K yearly contribution to the Housing Trust Fund, last paid in the year ending June 2025, is zero again in the adopted budget; the fund still gets GO bond and CDBG-DR money. The bigger housing money is federal: the plan HUD approved in May 2025 set aside $31M of the city's $225M CDBG-DR Helene recovery grant for housing, separate from this budget; most of the rest goes to infrastructure and economic recovery. In June 2026 the council voted to move $10M of the infrastructure money into home repair, pending HUD's approval.
The bottom line for a taxpayer
You are paying more this year — about $20 a month on a typical home — and the city is spending it mostly on people: firefighters, police, and the staff who run city services, while trimming hours and upkeep at the margins. The state freeze moved bills back to 2021 values, so the city re-set its rate to 50.78¢ on July 15 to fund the same budget; measured against last year's 44.19¢ on the same value, the city share is up about 14.9%.
How the rate got here — the state reappraisal freeze
A state law, SB 889 (signed June 19, 2026), froze the 2026 county revaluation for a year, pushing Buncombe back to old (2021) values. An amendment, SB 474 (Session Law 2026-47, signed July 7, 2026), then adjusted which counties it caught. The law names no county. It reaches any county whose reappraisal took effect January 1, 2026, and four kinds are exempt: those under 12,000 people; those with a population under 150,000 that are in the third year after the year they got notice that their assessed values had drifted too far from sale prices; those that taxed above 95 cents per $100, special tax areas excluded, at any point in the last four taxable years; and counties in the Helene disaster area that keep their rate at or under a revenue-neutral ceiling. That last one was Buncombe's exit. The county could have kept the 2026 values, but only by adopting a rate at or below its revenue-neutral rate rounded up to the next whole cent. Rounding its 39.22¢ revenue-neutral rate up put the ceiling at 40¢. Taking that exit would have cut roughly $24.8 million from the county's own budget. Its rate condition applied only to the county, not to the municipalities or the special taxing districts, though the county's choice still decided whether the city's June rate could stand. On July 14, 2026 the county chose to bill on 2021 values instead, amending its rate to 61.54¢. Because the city taxes the same tax roll, the 37.69¢ council set in June — priced on the now-shelved 2026 values — had to be re-set on the 2021 base; council did so at a July 15, 2026 special meeting, amending the city rate to 50.78¢ to raise the same revenue on the older, lower values. The 50.78¢ figures here are the settled city bill; the 37.69¢ was the June rate on 2026 values.
Sources: City of Asheville FY2027 budget adoption release (June 9, 2026); FY2027 recommended budget staff report; Blue Ridge Public Radio, WLOS, 828 News Now, Mountain Xpress, Carolina Journal; revenue-neutral and rate figures from the city and WLOS. General-fund line items and department figures: City of Asheville Adopted Budget, Fiscal Year 2026-27 (transmittal letter dated July 17, 2026). Reappraisal freeze and rate reversion: Buncombe County's amended FY2026-2027 budget ordinance, adopted July 14, 2026 at a special meeting of the Board of Commissioners (reported the same day in County News Flash No. 1049); Mountain Xpress and Public Radio East, July 15, 2026. City rate amendment: City of Asheville and WLOS, July 15, 2026 — at a special meeting the council amended the FY2027 city rate to 50.78¢ on 2021 values (from the 37.69¢ set in June on 2026 values), the rate that raises the same revenue the adopted budget assumed. County (61.54¢) and Asheville City Schools (11.75¢) are the amended 2021-value rates adopted July 14. Independent summary; not affiliated with the City of Asheville. Updated July 16, 2026 for the city's amended rate on 2021 values, and August 15, 2026 for the value the bill is figured on.