Taxpayer Brief · Buncombe County
Where your county tax dollars go in FY2027
The Buncombe County budget for July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 — the one in effect now
Adopted June 2, 2026 · Prepared 2026-06-29 · Updated 2026-07-16: rate amended to 61.54¢ on 2021 values after the state reappraisal freeze (the City of Asheville set its own rate at 50.78¢ July 15) · Adopted figures
After a brutal austerity budget in FY2026, the county is spending again. The FY2027 general fund rose more than 10% — to $484.4 million — largely to restore the cuts Helene forced last year and to fund schools, EMS, and human services. Commissioners passed it and raised the tax rate to pay for it.
Update — July 14: the rate was amended to 61.54¢ on 2021 values
After this budget was adopted in June, a new state law forced Buncombe off its 2026 revaluation and back to 2021 property values for this year's tax bills. On July 14, 2026 the commissioners kept the budget whole by raising the county rate to 61.54¢ per $100 (from the 43.20¢ set in June) so the old, lower values still fund the same spending. The figures below are the amended rate on 2021 values. Bills are delayed and will post at tax.buncombenc.gov; the appraisal office is still working through more than 16,000 appeals of the shelved 2026 values. See "How the rate got here" at the foot of this brief.
Read the tax rate carefully — it is a real increase
Because the state freeze put the county back on 2021 values — the same values that were in effect last year — the honest yardstick is simple: your assessment did not change, but the rate did. The county rate went from 54.66¢ in FY2026 to 61.54¢ now, up 6.88 cents, about 12.6%, on the same house at the same value. (The 43.20¢ the county set in June was a different plan, priced on the 2026 revaluation that the state has now shelved; it never took effect.) Whether an individual owner pays more or less than they would have under the 2026 values depends on how much their home appreciated, but measured against last year's bill on the same 2021 value, the county share is up about 12.6%.
Where the general fund goes
Unlike the city, the county's big jobs are schools, public safety, and human services — together about 71 cents of every general-fund dollar.
Schools rose about $11.4M. Human services (social services, public health, aging, veterans) holds at ~$100M. A-B Tech's county contribution is about $8.7M (up ~$264K). (Fire services, in a separate fund, saw a larger single jump — about $14M.)
Where the money comes from
Property tax carries roughly two-thirds of the county general fund — which is why a revenue squeeze translates straight into a rate increase.
- Property tax — about $335 million (~69%, the dominant source)
- Sales tax — about $49.5 million
- State & federal (intergovernmental) — about $46.3 million (down slightly; commissioners cited falling state/federal revenue as a budget pressure)
- Charges for services — about $24.8 million
- Permits & fees — about $7.5 million
Revenue figures are from the adopted Annual Funds Ordinance, rounded to the nearest million.
One piece of that falling federal revenue is SNAP
Part of the drop is a new, permanent cost the 2025 federal budget law hands to the county. Washington used to pay half the cost of administering SNAP (food stamps); it now pays a quarter, and because North Carolina is one of the states where counties, not the state, run the program, Buncombe absorbs the difference. The county estimates about $2 million in lost SNAP administrative revenue in FY2027, a partial year because the change starts October 1, 2026, three months into the budget year. The state's own county-by-county estimate puts Buncombe's full-year cost at about $2.8 million, the figure a complete fiscal year will carry starting in FY2028. It is folded into the intergovernmental total above, not shown as its own line.
That administrative cost is the county's piece. The same law also creates a second, much larger SNAP bill, one the 2025 law wrote to the state: for the first time North Carolina has to pay part of the food benefits themselves, an amount set by the state's payment error rate, from nothing up to about $420 million a year (about $150 million at the state's current rate), starting in FY2028. Buncombe residents help cover that as North Carolina taxpayers, and now, under the 2026 state budget, as a county too: North Carolina recovers that share by withholding a slice of each county's sales-tax revenue, so it is Buncombe money even though it is not a line in the figures above.
What it costs you
| Assessed home value (2021) | County tax (61.54¢) |
|---|---|
| $300,000 | $1,846 |
| $400,000 | $2,462 |
| $500,000 | $3,077 |
| $600,000 | $3,692 |
These are illustrative round values — use your own 2021 assessed value (bills now revert to the 2021 schedule; an individual bill is the rate times your value). County tax only. If you live in unincorporated county you also pay the amended Unified Fire District (17.38¢); inside the Asheville City Schools district you also pay the amended 11.75¢ for schools; city residents add the city rate on top (the City of Asheville amended its own rate to 50.78¢ on the 2021 base at a July 15 special meeting).
Estimate your bill — unincorporated Buncombe
For unincorporated Buncombe (county rate + the unified fire rate, 78.92¢ per $100). Excludes any city/town rate, the Asheville City Schools district, exemptions or deferments, and separate stormwater/solid-waste fees. Uses the amended FY2027 rate on 2021 values the commissioners adopted July 14 after the state reappraisal freeze. An estimate — use your actual 2021 assessed value and bill.
Housing, food & human services (where the county carries the most)
- Affordable housing — $13.4M in Affordable Housing Services Program authorizations (largest: Harmony Housing's $9.8M Coxe Ave construction loan), funded by a mix of the affordable-housing GO bond, general fund, and housing-trust program income — not single general-fund line items. The project-by-project list, and the requests that went unfunded, are in the county housing & food funding brief.
- Food access: MANNA FoodBank ($85K for Southside food access), Food Connection ($84K), Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture ($38K).
- Human services: Early Childhood Education grants ($4.05M), Isaac Coleman economic grants ($500K), and $1.2M in safety-net / behavioral-health grants (Haywood Street Respite, All Souls Counseling, WNC Community Health, and more).
- Honest caveat: demand far outran dollars — many homelessness-prevention, transitional-housing, food-access, and behavioral-health requests were marked "not recommended for funding."
What's new in FY2027
- Restoring last year's cuts is the theme — FY26 was the Helene austerity budget; FY27 builds services back, "structurally balanced" (one-time money only for one-time costs).
- 28 new positions (adopted, trimmed from the recommended count); a 2.71% cost-of-living raise for staff.
- Capital: two new EMS bases (EMS West ~$16.6M), an Emergency Operations Center design, a 911 center design for FY28, three library renovations; plus a $37M Helene recovery grant.
The bottom line for a taxpayer
You are paying about 12.6% more in county tax on the same 2021 value, and you are getting more county government for it than last year — schools funded, EMS expanded, human services restored. The state freeze put everyone back on 2021 values, so the increase shows up plainly in the rate: 54.66¢ last year to 61.54¢ now. The county funds more of this than anyone else in the region, but even at $484M the requests outnumber the dollars.
How the rate got here — the state reappraisal freeze
A state law, SB 889 (signed June 19, 2026), froze the 2026 revaluation for a year for a short list of counties, Buncombe among them, pushing the county back to old (2021) values. A follow-up, SB 474 (Session Law 2026-47, signed July 7, 2026), would have let Buncombe keep the 2026 values only if it dropped to a revenue-neutral rate of about 40¢ — a roughly $24.8 million cut that would have swept in the city and the county's towns. On July 14, 2026 the commissioners chose the other path: bill on 2021 values and amend the county rate to 61.54¢ (from the 43.20¢ set in June) to keep the adopted budget whole. That rate also absorbs about $1.8 million in public-service-utility tax lost by reverting. Board Chair Amanda Edwards said the legislature "has singled out Buncombe County residents, ignoring our natural disaster recovery needs." Bills are delayed; pending appeals of the 2026 values are held for the next reappraisal.
Sources: Buncombe County FY2027 Adopted Budget in Brief and Annual Funds Ordinance; FY2027 budget adoption release (June 2, 2026); Blue Ridge Public Radio, WLOS, Mountain Xpress. Function and revenue figures (and the $698M all-funds total) are from the adopted ordinance and Budget-in-Brief. Housing and human-services amounts draw on a mix of general fund, bond, and program-income sources. Tax-cost examples are county tax only, on 2021 values (the schedule restored by the state freeze). Rate amendment: Buncombe County News Flash No. 1049 (July 14, 2026), adopting the amended FY2027 rates on 2021 values (county 61.54¢, Unified Fire District 17.38¢, Asheville City Schools 11.75¢) after SB 889/SB 474; Mountain Xpress and Public Radio East, July 15, 2026. SNAP administrative cost shift: Buncombe County News Flash No. 933 (April 28, 2026), estimating about $2 million in lost FY2027 SNAP administrative revenue under HB1; NCDHHS "H.R. 1 FNS County Admin Impact Table" (final, December 19, 2025), which annualizes Buncombe's full-year cost at about $2.84 million once the federal administrative match cut from 50 to 25 percent is fully in effect (FY2028). State benefit-cost penalty (a state cost, not a county one): the 2025 budget law (P.L. 119-21) ties a state's SNAP benefit share to its payment error rate, from nothing to 15 percent, beginning FY2028. The $150 million first-year figure is the NC General Assembly Fiscal Research Division's estimate on federal FY2024-25 error data (Fiscal Note SFN257v7, July 7, 2026), and it supersedes an earlier derived $140 million; the $420 million ceiling is the 15 percent tier applied to North Carolina's roughly $2.8 billion annual benefit base and remains a derived, illustrative figure rather than an official estimate. State error rate 7.36 percent for FY2025 (USDA FY2025 state payment error rates, June 24, 2026; NC Budget & Tax Center). Independent summary; not affiliated with Buncombe County. Updated July 4, 2026 to itemize the SNAP administrative cost shift and the state-level benefit-cost penalty; updated July 15, 2026 for the amended rate on 2021 values.