Town of Fuquay-Varina
Audited figures filed with the Local Government Commission.
What the figures show
Fuquay-Varina spent $2,723 per resident in 2025, its highest figure in nine years of filings and roughly double the $1,332 it spent in 2017. Total spending grew faster still, from $32.3 million to $120.5 million, while the town added 20,000 residents, going from 24,293 to 44,246.
Per-resident spending did not climb steadily. It jumped to $2,264 in 2018, fell back to $1,624 by 2021 as population outpaced the budget, then rose again to $2,505 in 2023 and has stayed near that level since. That shape suggests capital work landing in bursts rather than services expanding evenly.
Read the rest (139 more words)
Revenues swing harder than spending. They ran $155.9 million in 2023, dropped to $114.9 million in 2024, then reached $165.0 million in 2025. The filings do not separate borrowing from recurring money, and the town was issuing voter-approved transportation bonds during this period, so those peaks should not be read as tax collections.
The recurring base grew more evenly. Property tax revenue went from $12.8 million to $36.7 million and sales tax from $4.8 million to $13.2 million, both roughly tripling while population rose 82 percent.
Nine years is enough to call this a trend, and the trend is a town spending more per resident each year while adding residents quickly. What cannot be said from these filings is how much of it was borrowed: fund balance, long-term debt and the tax rate were not reported in any year.
Read from the filed reports below, not from anything said at a meeting.
Year by year
| Year | Population | Revenue | Spending | Spent per resident | Fund balance | Property tax | Long-term debt | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 24,293 | $44,666,248 | $32,347,280 | $1,332 | — | $12,826,474 | — | — |
| 2018 | 25,581 | $51,121,796 | $57,913,992 | $2,264 | — | $13,851,251 | — | — |
| 2019 | 26,936 | $91,854,095 | $58,160,136 | $2,159 | — | $14,904,024 | — | — |
| 2020 | 28,109 | $69,749,932 | $56,337,263 | $2,004 | — | $15,897,230 | — | — |
| 2021 | 34,604 | $76,048,846 | $56,207,220 | $1,624 | — | $18,886,391 | — | — |
| 2022 | 36,017 | $97,754,794 | $64,411,109 | $1,788 | — | $20,424,102 | — | — |
| 2023 | 38,516 | $155,854,004 | $96,494,414 | $2,505 | — | $25,378,868 | — | — |
| 2024 | 41,010 | $114,871,594 | $100,763,705 | $2,457 | — | $29,589,957 | — | — |
| 2025 | 44,246 | $165,011,216 | $120,503,423 | $2,723 | — | $36,731,604 | — | — |
A dash means the field was not in that year's filing. It does not mean zero dollars. These figures come from the Local Government Commission's reporting portal, which serves them a year at a time rather than as a document per filing.