May 4, 2026
Brevard City Manager Wilson Hooper (left) presents his proposed 2026-27 fiscal year budget to members of Brevard City Council. Council members Lauren Wise and Patricia Holder did not attend Monday night’s meeting. Jonathan Rich / Brevard Beagle
By Jonathan Rich
BrevardBeagle.com
Monday night Brevard City Manager Wilson Hooper presented a $27, 677,133 budget for the next fiscal year to Brevard City Council and explained the proposed 2.5-cent increase in property tax rates he requested to help fund it.
The proposed increase, including additional advances in city utility rates, equates to $87.18 more a year for a taxpayer owning a home within the city limits that has an assessed value of $350,000.
This chart shows the possible impact of the proposed city budget on several typical taxpayers given their income levels and utility rates with comparisons over several years. City of Brevard
Hooper stressed that taxpayers would get a lot for that increase and that his proposed budget was $50,000 lower than what the city considered last year, but he also said he understood any price increase in these tight economic times might not be a popular one.
“Every budget is a tough thing and it’s even tougher when the board isn’t engaged, but you are,” Hooper said at the start of his 39-minute presentation of the 207-page budget document which can be found online at www.cityofbrevard.com/DocumentCenter/View/6251/FY26-27-Recommended-Budget. “The money in the budget maintains, by and large, all service levels. There are some minor things that we will cut back on, and it enhances certain other service levels.”
His proposed budget includes a 2.7% cost of living increase for all eligible city employees as well as adding three full-time positions to the Public Works Department (two in the buildings and grounds division and one in the streets division).
“It would just be so great if we could just run the city and not have to deal with more taxes, but we have to balance their needs with what’s happening really with the economic environment we live in,” said Mayor Mauren Copelof referring to the pay raise for 103 full-time employees and 40 part-time employees presently on the city payroll. “We have to take care of the people who work for us with the cost of living and making sure the jobs are properly compensating them..”
The plan would also increase staffing at the Brevard Fire Department along with any staffing funded by the County Commissioners and it continues previously-approved financing for a new fire truck that recently went into use. Two new police cars ($140,000) are included in the budget, as well as maintenance to Brevard City Hall and city-owned security cameras ($190,000).
“The vast majority of this budget, $10.4 million, is dedicated to public safety and public works services,” Hooper explained. “Those are the services that, in my experience, even critics of municipal governments will say they think are essential and where nearly all of the proposed budget increases in this year’s budget live.”
There would be 4% increase to utility fees for recycling and cardboard collection, but the proposed budget could also give all city garbage collection customers a 96-gallon tipper cart at each home for quicker and safer collection instead of customers having to provide their own containers.
A 96-gallon tipper bin similar to the one shown above could be delivered to every city residential garbage collection customer under the proposed fiscal budget for next year. City of Brevard
“This budget would switch us from a model where households are allowed to have multiple small 35-gallon containers to one 96-gallon roll-out bin similar to the recycling bin that you already have at your house if you live in Brevard,” Hooper said of the $175,000 budget item that would be financed across five years of budgets. “The reason why changing to this model is a good idea, even though it’s going to cost a little money, is that every single one of those 35-gallon bins must be dumped into the truck by hand. As you might imagine, this manual process of collecting the garbage is slow, dangerous, and sometimes dirty.”
“It’s inconvenient for customers who have to roll it all out to the curbside each week,” he continued. “We want to make our garbage collection more like our recycling collection where the machine on the truck can do most of the work.”
For city services, Hooper said a major change would be an increase in sanitation collection fees for commercial and institutional properties as current collections only cover about 50% of those costs.
“In my opinion, this budget is a product of the tough financial times we live in,” Hooper concluded. “With that said, obviously this is just a proposal and is subject to change if you wish. Staff and I stand ready to receive and calculate the effect of any changes you propose.”
This graphic shows the various major sources of revenue proposed in the 2067-27 fiscal year budget. City of Brevard
Council members said they appreciated the difficulty the city manager had in presenting a property tax increase to the city, but that they also knew what it could mean for the average citizen to have to pay for what Hooper suggested.
“I understand quite well the burden any tax increase might have on the public,” said Councilman Dean Lytle. “It is very, very difficult, and it’s like flying a helicopter. You want to make sure that we cover those things that are essential, but at the same time we don’t want to overburden the community in any way.”
“I would like to make it clear to the public that regardless of what increased responsibilities come to Public Works, we are currently understaffed there,” added Councilman Gary Daniel. “It’s not because of new responsibilities that we need to hire more Public Works employees, it’s because we are understaffed now and they are over-stressed. I think it’s long overdue.”
Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Baker brought up the need for funding additional parking and safety measures at the City Sports Complex on Ecusta Road after a recent incident where an intoxicated driver ran his truck over a 7-year-old boy.
“That parking lot is beyond needing to be addressed,” Baker said. “Not all of that can be attributed to the parking over there. I can tell you, it’s a disaster and chaos over there every weeknight. We have a proposal from an engineering group to reconfigure that parking lot and we’re going to have to pay for improvements over there. We need to do that in this budget. I am not going to vote for this budget unless we know how to do that.”
A public hearing on the proposed 2026-27 fiscal year budget is set for Monday, May 18 at Brevard City Hall. Copies are available online, at the Transylvania County Library, and Brevard City Hall. State statutes mandate the city budget must be adopted before July 1.
Jonathan Rich may be reached via Editor@BrevardBeagle.com.