Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

CUMBERLAND, R.I. -- The Town Council late Monday night postponed its first of two required votes on a proposed budget for the year that starts July 1 but did vote to approve the recreation, sewer and water funds that are largely or entirely self-sustained by consumer usage fees.

If approved as is, the $77.5-million municipal-schools budget carries a 3-percent residential tax-rate increase, meaning about $114 more on a tax bill for a house assessed at $300,000. But issues came to light during Monday's second, and final, public hearing that might mean changes when the council takes up the budget for a first vote now scheduled for Wednesday night's 7:30 meeting. (The second vote will probably be next week.)

At issue is a part of the budget proposal in which $375,000 of school-side surplus would be used for the town's contribution to school expenses -- that drew concern from school district officials who asserted that doing that appears to violate state law.

School officials offered an alternative at the hearing. Instead of using the school surplus, the town could draw the same amount of money from a proposed elevator project at North Cumberland Middle School and a chairlift could be installed at the school to meet the Americans with Disability Act. The proposal includes having the town cover a master lease of some $100,000 for the chairlift. The lease would be paid over several years, perhaps at about $23,000 annually.

But Mayor Daniel McKee expressed concern, particularly given that the town is already dealing with increased debt payments. He put another alternative on the table: the council could consider increasing the budget above the town's own cap on year-to-year tax increases. That would still fall below a different state cap on taxes to which other Rhode Island communities are subject.

Cumberland instituted, by ordinance, its limit on tax increase years before the state did on other communities. The town's limit is built around the tax rate: it was a 3.5-percent rate increase limit in the current fiscal year that drops to 3 percent in the coming year. The budget proposal is therefore at the Cumberland cap limit already.

The state's year-to-year cap is built around the tax levy, rather than rate. McKee said at the hearing that the council could, under a provision of the ordinance, vote to exceed the local cap in order to have the money for the school project to comply with the Americans with Disability Act.

Donald J. Costa, the School Committee chairman, said in an interview before the council hearing that the issue of the use of school surplus was something officials had worked on over the weekend, "so hopefully we can straighten it out and go forward."

Several members of the public spoke, almost exclusively on the school budget and the tone of their comments tended to favor preserving money for education. Unlike communities that use a financial town meeting, in which the public has the direct and final decision on budgets, in Cumberland -- and other communities -- the mayor brings proposals to the council, which holds public hearings and then takes two votes on different days to ratify the budget.

Cumberland's unusual process allows that about 10 months into a fiscal year, town officials will look at how revenue and expenses have worked out compared with original projections and make changes to reconcile the numbers.

And the tax increase that accompanies a budget approved by the council in June does not go out as a bill to residents until the following May.

However the budget shakes out in votes this week, some Cumberland officials hinted Monday that the uncertainty about what the state will or won't deliver to the town means officials could have to go back into the budget in another month.

 Tags  budget hearing Cumberland RI economy

Comments

Klark said:

When are we going to have real cuts in gov't spending? We need to keep taxes down.

Link | June 2, 2009 9:58 AM
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