RALEIGH -- Local taxes and fees in Asheville totaled about $2,257 per resident in the 2008 budget year, ranking the city No. 3 out of North Carolina’s 32 largest ranked cities, according to a new John Locke Foundation report released in late March.

Asheville dropped one spot from its No. 2 ranking in 2007.

Asheville now trails Charlotte and Mooresville in the rankings of combined city and county costs per person. Chapel Hill and Wilmington round out the top five in the list of 32 ranked municipalities with at least 25,000 residents. Jacksonville, Indian Trail, Thomasville, Fayetteville, and Goldsboro ranked lowest among the large cities.

Among slightly smaller municipalities, some Western North Carolina communities had relatively high local government costs per resident. Brevard ($2,140 per person) ranked No. 11, Waynesville ($2,006) No. 16, and Black Mountain ($1,917) No. 22 among the 87 ranked municipalities with populations between 5,000 and 25,000 people.

Two WNC communities in the same population category -- Marion ($1,378) and Mills River ($1,372) -- ranked among the municipalities with the lowest local tax burdens. Other communities had local revenues per person that ranked near the average for their population group. That list includes Hendersonville ($1,876), Fletcher ($1,704), Forest City ($1,575), and Morganton ($1,483).

Lake Lure ($4,072), Biltmore Forest ($3,155), Maggie Valley ($2,596), Weaverville ($2,573), Murphy ($2,295), Tryon ($2,204), Sylva ($2,046), Canton ($2,019), and Franklin ($1,970) all earned spots among the top 40 in the list of 193 ranked municipalities with populations of 1,000 to 5,000 residents.

For a second straight year, Lowrey could not assign a tax burden ranking to Graham County. In 2006, Graham had the state’s eighth-highest rate of taxes and fees as a share of income. Graham’s rank for 2007 and 2008 is unclear because of incomplete data.

Meanwhile, Macon County ranked No. 14 in 2008, with taxes and fees taking up 5.56 percent of personal income. Cherokee (5.36 percent) ranked No. 18, and Buncombe (5.28 percent) ranked No. 22. On the other end of the spectrum, six WNC counties ranked among the 25 N.C. counties with the lowest tax and fee burdens per person. They were Swain (3.99 percent), McDowell (3.94 percent), Burke (3.85 percent), Polk (3.74 percent), Madison (3.66 percent), and Yancey (3.38 percent).

Other WNC counties had rates closer to the state median of 4.71 percent. They include Transylvania (4.99 percent), Haywood (4.99 percent), Clay (4.74 percent), Rutherford (4.61 percent), Jackson (4.51 percent), Mitchell (4.24 percent), and Henderson (4.16 percent).

“The typical resident of the median county in North Carolina paid $1,330 in taxes and fees to county and municipal governments,” said report author Michael Lowrey, a John Locke Foundation policy analyst. “The good news is that total is down from the inflation-adjusted figure of $1,355 for the 2007 budget year. The bad news is that a price spike early in the 2008 calendar year bears some responsibility for the decrease.