As many municipalities face uncertainties over their finances in the coming years, they are looking for answers to questions they have about those uncertainties.

In an effort to help the state’s cities, towns and villages better prepare to address those uncertainties, the North Carolina League of Municipalities has been conducting a series of meetings examining the future of municipal finances. The fourth meeting in that series will be conducted from 10 a.m. to noon Monday at City Hall in Greenville.

The meeting, A Path Forward: Vibrant Cities Today and Tomorrow, is designed to look at the many financial challenges facing the state’s municipalities, from big cities such as Charlotte to small towns such as Aurora, Chocowinity and Belhaven

Bobby Roberson, who will be in his third day as Washington’s interim city manager Monday, plans to attend the meeting. He wants the meeting to provide information that cities and towns can use in preparing to face financial challenges that might come their way. Matt Rauschenbach, the city’s chief financial officer, plans to attend the meeting, Roberson said.

“I think one of the most important things is that the General Assembly in the past few years has stepped down into local government, and has actually taken away a lot of our revenue streams. I think it’s important for us, collectively as municipalities, to find out — based on the incoming bills that we’ve got in the General Assembly — how it’s going to affect our finances down the line,” said Roberson, who resigned last week as a member of the City Council and was hired as interim city manager.

“The classic example is the one that we had when they (General Assembly) took away the business privilege license,” Roberson said. He was referring to the city losing its authority to generate revenue from issuing such licenses. In recent years, the city took in about $120,000 annually from issuing those licenses.

On May 29, 2014, the Legislature passed, and Gov. Pat McCrory signed, a law that affected business (or privilege) license taxes in North Carolina. That law removed from local governments the authority to levy business-license fees beginning with the 2015-2016 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

“Of interest to me — I also sell real estate — but I paid my state business privilege license, which cost me $50. I’m just saying, all up and down the line, they’re taking away certain streams of revenue from us, but they’re not taking away those streams on the state level,” Roberson said. “And I think that’s a real concern for local municipalities.”

Roberson said municipalities need to know what the General Assembly has in mind in regard to proposed legislation that could affect their finances.

“We need to find out what new bills are being played so we can interact with the elected officials and be either for or against them (bills), depending on what those proposed rules are,” he said.

Burlington Mayor Ronnie Wall, who is NCLM president, said in a NCLM news release, “These meetings are furthering a public conversation about how cities and towns continue to move our economy forward in the face of significant state policy changes. It is crucial that state policymakers consider the important role that modest property tax rates have played when it comes to job creation, the expansion of existing businesses, and the recruitment of new businesses to the state. Services provided by cities and towns help to create a desirable quality of life, and that attractive quality of life is another key component of the economic development equation.”

Attempts to determine if other local municipal officials plan to attend the meeting were not successful.

The North Carolina League of Municipalities is a membership association of 540 great hometowns that represents nearly every municipality in the state. It advocates for its members, from the largest city to the smallest village, on the full range of legislative issues that affect municipalities.