Should Valdese increase debt to pay for public safety building?

The Town of Valdese has been making headlines as the Town Council wrestles with a genuine challenge: how to provide the public safety facilities the town needs while balancing the long-term financial impact on taxpayers.

Economist Milton Friedman once observed that “One of the greatest mistakes in public policy is to judge programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

Few would question the good intentions behind efforts to improve public safety facilities. The more difficult question is whether the path currently being pursued will yield the best results.

Residents want police officers, firefighters, and other public safety personnel to receive adequate compensation, modern equipment, and safe working conditions. The disagreement is not over the need but over how.

As reported by The Paper on May 30, the Valdese Town Council approved the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget by a 3-2 vote, including a 31% property tax increase.

The tax increase was necessary to secure the Local Government Commission's approval on Aug. 4 to seek a $10.8 million loan to construct a public safety building.

The council will consider the building's cost at its next scheduled meeting on Aug. 3. The council also approved moving forward with the loan application by a 3-2 vote.

If approved, the loan would roughly triple Valdese's current debt burden, making Valdese the town with the highest debt load among 117 similarly sized North Carolina towns.

The question is not whether Valdese can borrow $10.8 million but whether it must.

The council addressed meeting the town's public safety needs without incurring additional debt by converting the existing Town Hall into a police station and relocating the town's six administrative employees.

The discussion quickly shifted from the broader question of avoiding debt to the narrower issue of relocating the small administrative staff.

Further consideration ended before the 7,500-SF building the town owns on Main Street was evaluated.

In 2024, the town purchased the former Mitchell Law office to renovate it into a police station. After it was decided that the building would not adequately serve the entire police department, the town is considering offers to sell it.

Could that building, which appears largely move-in ready for administrative purposes, accommodate town hall functions?

Would that allow the current Town Hall building, whose remaining loan payments exceed its cost, to be dedicated to police use?

Should the Town Council consider this and other alternatives to meet current needs before burdening taxpayers with 20 years of daunting debt?

For example, a fire station comparable to the Lovelady Fire Station under construction in Rutherford College could be built for $5 million using existing funds if the police could use the town hall.

The issue before Valdese is not whether public safety facilities should be improved. It is whether the town has fully explored all reasonable options before committing to a level of debt that will shape future tax rates and economic development for years.

Before Valdese commits to what would become the largest financial decision in its history, citizens deserve the opportunity to hear about every viable alternative and the costs and benefits of each.

A decision of this magnitude should not be made to meet an arbitrary deadline or merely to clear a legal hurdle; it should clear the higher hurdle of public confidence.