In this state, the General Assembly incorporates cities and towns to protect the public and provide urban or municipal services to citizens. Typical services include police and fire protection, water and sewer services, parks and recreation, garbage collection and disposal, streets and street maintenance, planning and zoning, and inspections.
There are few services that a particular municipality must provide. The municipality's charter may outline what services will be provided and the governing body may also determine which services will be provided. For example, a city or town is not required to provide water and sewer services to municipal citizens, although this is a very common service. The governing board, acting on behalf of the citizens and in response to citizen requests, determines the services.
A municipality generally must have the specific authority to provide a service, either granted in the state constitution or by the General Assembly. For example, cities and towns are authorized to provide parks and recreation programs, but not to fund schools.
Muncipalities are authorized to adopt various types of ordinances to regulate activities within the community in order to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public. Examples include animal control, noise, nuisances, land use, etc.
The municipal governing board - the mayor and the other elected board members - determines service levels, adopts an annual budget, adopts municipal ordinances (local rules), sets policy and is the policy-making body for the city or town.
In North Carolina, there are two basic forms of municipal government - council-manager and mayor- council. In addition, there is one variation, mayor-council with an administrator. Under the council-manager form, the governing board hires the manager and usually one or two other key positions such as clerk and attorney. The manager then is responsible for seeing that the services are provided and that the governing body's policies are carried out. The manager makes all hiring decisions other than those made directly by the board.
With the mayor-council form, there is not a manager; the governing board is responsible for hiring any staff. Often, individual board members will be responsible for one or more departments of the town government. For example; one board member might serve as the finance officer.
As towns grow and service provision becomes more complex, mayor-council municipalities often hire administrators. These administrators carry out the policies of the board, but do not have the full statutory authority of managers.
The governing board sets its meeting day, time and location. The board may organize itself by committees that take up particular issues and make recommendations back to the full board.
In addition, most cities and towns have a number of advisory commissions and boards that deal with particular subject areas, such as a planning commission, a board of adjustment or a parks and recreation advisory board. The municipal governing board appoints the members of such volunteer boards. The boards have various functions, such as recommending zoning changes to the governing board (planning commission) or granting zoning variances (board of adjustment).
All meetings of the governing board, its committees and its appointed commissions and boards are open to the public although the public body may go into a closed session under certain, narrow circumstances.
All North Carolina municipalities are required by law to adopt balanced budgets. The fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30. The board sets the annual property tax rate when it adopts the budget. A state agency, the Local Government Commission (part of the State Treasurer's Department) oversees municipal government finances, ensuring that all municipalities operate under the policies and statutes adopted by the state and with strict fiscal standards. The Local Government Commission must approve all debt for municipalities and counties.
Because of the financial prudence of N.C. municipal officials and the careful oversight of the Local Government Commission, cities and towns are in strong financial shape and maintain adequate fund balances (reserves).
In recognition of strong financial management, a significant number of N.C. cities and counties and have achieved an AAA bond rating. There are more AAA bond-rated local governments in this state than any other state. This designation not only marks the quality of the financial management of these local governments, but it also saves taxpayers' money by lowering the cost of borrowing. [The better the bond rating, the lower the interest rate the local government has to pay to borrow funds.]
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