Property tax levy: $33,502,622
Levy increase: 7.88%
Property tax rate: $15.40 (currently $14.35)
Average bill: $4,740.34
Average bill increase: $346.27
Average cost per week: $6.66
Right in the middle of the worst economy in a century.
But there’s more: It is now clearly the School Department’s position that the town is responsible for every penny of its $25,520,782 appropriation. So, if the state reduces its aid significantly, the School Committee will request the additional money from the town, which will either have to decrease services or increase taxes.
Rhode Island General Law 16-7-23 states that “the school committee’s budget provisions of each community for current expenditures in each budget year shall provide for an amount from all sources sufficient to support the basic program and all other approved programs shared by the state.” There’s no number associated with that, so the School Department comes up with an amount that it believes it needs in order to meet all requirements and sets that before the town. The town can disagree and appropriate a lower amount (by, for example, excluding expected state and federal aid), and if it comes up inadequate, the School Committee must then make the argument that it cannot cut its budget to the degree necessary to meet requirements, and somewhere in the political and legal battle that ensues, a solution would be found.
What the electors at today’s financial town meeting have done, effectively, is to agree with the School Committee that it requires a budget in the amount of $25,520,782 to meet its basic requirements. It’s not an automatic increase; lawsuits will still be necessary. But if the state decreases its aid — which it did, this year, although federal dollars made up most of the difference — then the School Department will have strong grounds to demand that the town compensate, either cutting services or increasing taxes. If, say, a million dollars disappears from state aid, the School Department will point to today’s vote and argue that the people of Tiverton agree that their total appropriation is the precise amount that it takes to educate a child. The outward boundary for that increase is 22.3%.
Just so you can keep track, as the state’s budget processes move forward: every $300,000 that the state or federal government decides not to provide will be a 1% increase in the tax levy.
And don’t forget the coming “pay as you throw” program that will likely double the cost of your trash pickup — paid once in taxes and once again in bag fees.
The bottom line is that the balance of power rests with people who receive more from the town than they contribute to it, financially. They’ve got more motivation to show up at the high school on a sunny day, and they receive a direct financial boost — or, at the very least, financial stability — by voting for higher budgets for the departments that pay them. They do not think $346 per year is a lot of money, because they stand to gain thousands, or because the cost of the services that they use would be more if they couldn’t force homeowners to subsidize the bill. And that tax bill goes up and up:
But it’s a beautiful day, and I’m a silver lining type of guy, so let’s end on a positive (if tiny) thread of hope:
What you’re looking at is a space that just held 1,000 people… most of whom took their trash with them and threw it away. The silver lining? That people will ultimately do the right thing when an issue is made of the wrong. Budgetary and taxation matters are much more complex to convey than cleaning up after one’s self, but that’s a challenge of degree, not of kind.
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