ROANOKE, Va. – Roanoke is facing an almost $20 million shortfall as it prepares its fiscal 2027 budget, and officials are weighing cuts that could eliminate more than 100 city positions.
“This is probably the hardest budget I’ve seen, and I’ve been with the city for 45 years,” said Evelyn Powers, Roanoke City Council Member.
The City of Roanoke said the gap was about $18.9 million earlier in the process. The shortfall is now about $5.1 million after cutting roughly 100 to 115 vacant positions, reducing annual pay raises for city staff, and leaving $5.2 million in department requests unfunded.
The city also removed about $50 million in capital projects over a five-year period. Projects affected include work on Fishburn Mansion, upgrades to the Belmont Library and multiple park projects.
“These options affect people, and they affect services, and we don’t want to make these decisions but that’s the reality were living in,” said Roanoke City Mayor Joe Cobb.
Roanoke City Vice-Mayor Terry McGuire added, “I’m just thinking do we have a revenue problem or do we have a spending and accountability problems?”
Federal uncertainty is also adding pressure. The Community Development Block Grant, known as CDBG, funds local housing, infrastructure and job projects. City officials say federal discussion about the program’s future increases budget risk.
10 News spoke with political analyst Dr. Cayce Myers for further explanation.
“Well, it’s funding that ultimately ends up providing funds for housing and other issues, so one of the things that ends up happening when you take away funding is there’s a trickle-down economic effect where local communities then have to absorb those costs and absorb those services, and so there’s this ancillary impact of it that goes beyond funding in itself, it’s something that’s very much felt on the local level,” said Myers.
According to the city, the budget team is trying to close the remaining gap without raising taxes.
Council member Evelyn Powers said, “This would’ve been really easy to do, we could’ve increased taxes to our citizens, but we don’t want to do that.”
Vice Mayor Terry McGuire said he opposes a property tax increase, saying, “I’m not going to be able to support a property tax increase, I think we should be looking to actually lower that, and so I appreciate your work and I know that we’ll get through this, but I think this is very frustrating, for me and I know that it is for a lot of the residents because I’ve heard from them.”
Roanoke still must close the remaining roughly $5 million gap. Officials say residents will have opportunities to give input on the budget before the final budget is adopted in May.
Timeline:
- March 23 - A proposed budget will be presented to City Council.
- April 9 - Community meeting at Williamson Library.
- April 16 - Community meeting at South Roanoke United Methodist Church.
- April 23 - Public hearing on the proposed budget.
- May 4- Budget study.
- May 11 - Final budget will be adopted.
10 News will keep you updated as we confirm exact times and locations.