Warwick mayor: Budget reflects price of state aid cuts
2:09 PM Wed, May 13, 2009 | Permalink
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WARWICK, R.I. -- Cutting city spending and level-funding local support of the school budget is not enough to spare residents a tax increase next year, according to the 2010-11 budget proposal released by Mayor Scott Avedisian Wednesday. Avedisian said that all the city's cost-saving efforts -- including no pay raises in the coming fiscal year for union and non-union municipal employees -- cannot make up for continued cuts in state aid and other promised, but never received, state reimbursements for items such as auto excise taxes and business inventory taxes. "The state will need to be a serious partner in local government for us to continue [without tax increases or cuts in services]," Avedisian said. "And that has not happened yet." If approved by the City Council, Avedisian's budget would increase the property tax rate 73 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. That changes the rate to $14.14 from $13.41 per $1,000. For a resident with a home valued at $200,000, the new tax rate would mean an annual increase in tax payments of $146. Avedsian's proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 preserves all current city services but is about $1.3 million less than the current budget, largely because of wage concessions Avedisian was able to negotiate with city unions earlier this year. For the first time in recent history, the budget does not increase the local appropriation to the schools. Last week the School Committee approved a fiscal 2011 budget request of about $164 million, with the hope that roughly $128 million will come from the city. Instead, Avedisian's budget proposal, which will now be submitted to the City Council, gives the School Department the same allocation -- around $123.9 million -- in local tax dollars it received this year. Avedisian said the schools should be able to live with the level-funding because they do not have pay the $4.8 million in retroactive raises to their teachers next year as they did this year. Avedisian's budget proposal is based on the prediction that the state will cut the city's revenue sharing by about $4 million next year. If that state did not make that cut, the tax rate increase would be only about 43 cents, he said. The other proposed tax rates in Avedisian's budget proposal are $21.21 per $1,000 for commercial and industrial property and $28.28 per $1,000 for tangible property. In addition to cutting state aid next year and imposing mid-year cuts in aid on cities and towns for the past two years, Avedisian said the state is shortchanging municipalities with a long history of promised aid that has never materialized. For instance, he said, the city should be receiving about $1.5 million next in motor vehicle excise tax reimbursement, but the state will not be coming up with the money. Also, he said, for nearly a decade, the state has reneged on its promised formula that would make cities and towns whole for cuts in inventory taxes. That failure by the state costs the city about $560,000 every year, he said. 
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How about giving retired people a break, If I dont' have any kids in school then why should I pay a school tax. I have already paid the taxes. My kids are no longer in school and are on their own.
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