Proposed Portsmouth budget up slightly, but reval sends tax rate down

Spending plan calls for 58-cent drop in rate after revision

By Jim McGaw
Posted 4/25/17

Although Town Administrator Richard Rainer Jr.’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2018 calls for a 1.97 percent increase over the current total spending plan, the tax rate would still drop by 57 cents due mainly to the recent townwide property revaluation.

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Proposed Portsmouth budget up slightly, but reval sends tax rate down

Spending plan calls for 58-cent drop in rate after revision

Posted

Editor’s note: This story was updated April 26 to reflect revisions made to the draft budget due to an oversight town officials found that had omitted about $850,000 under expenses. 

PORTSMOUTH — Although Town Administrator Richard Rainer Jr.’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2018 calls for a 1.97 percent increase over the current total spending plan, the tax rate would still drop by 57 cents due mainly to the recent townwide property revaluation. 

Under the most recent revaluation, which takes place every three years, property values in Portsmouth rose by an average of 8 percent.

Mr. Rainer is proposing a $61,865,607 budget for fiscal year 2018 — $52.6 million to be raised through taxes — that will entail a tax rate of about $15.43 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. That’s 57 cents less than current tax rate of $16.

Those figures differ from numbers originally presented Monday night, however, when an oversight left out about $850,000 under expenses. 

“Regretfully, the Finance Department bottom line figure was not carried over into the expenditure summary page,” Mr. Rainer explained in an e-mail Wednesday morning. “This caused a ripple effect throughout the rest of the budget because all of the formulas are linked to the summaries. It wasn't caught until Monday night.”

Mr. Rainer said the mistake was corrected and adjustments were made in revenue projections and other areas to make up some of the difference. In response, the council agreed to accept the budget tentatively and review it more thoroughly before it’s adopted provisionally in May, he said.

After the revisions were made, the new total for the draft budget presented Tuesday had to be increased by $397,675 and the tax rate adjusted from $15.30 to $15.42. (The revised budget can be found on the town’s website at www.portsmouthri.com.)

Under the proposed spending plan, owners of a $350,000 home in Portsmouth would see their annual tax bill go down by $203, from $5,600 to $5,397. That drop will be offset, however, by the higher property values as reflected in the revaluation.

The motor vehicle excise tax of $22.50 per $1,000 would remain the same.

The budget includes an appropriation from the town of about $32.05 million for the School Department, approximately $450,000 (1.4 percent) more than the current figure of $31.6 million. Nearly 60 percent of tax dollars goes to the school district.

Mr. Rainer said the spending plan includes funding for capital projects such as the town’s road paving program, new police equipment, and repairs to the Melville Dam and the cupolas on the Glen Farm stables. Nearly $300,000 has been set aside for school capital improvement projects, he said.

It also supports the continuation of longterm planning for funding non-pension employment benefits, development of a facilities management plan, increased contributions to the fund balance and a contingency account for potential capital needs, the establishment of realistic overtime projects and more, Mr. Rainer said.

The council reviewed the budgets for the police, fire and public works departments on Tuesday. The panel was scheduled to go over the school budget Wednesday night and possibly meet again Thursday. The provisional budget will be adopted on May 8, with a public hearing scheduled for June 7 at the middle school. The final budget will be adopted June 12.

More information requested

While no one complained about the proposed budget’s bottom line, not everyone was happy with the way it was presented on Monday.

Council member Paul Kesson, in fact, proposed waiting another week to review the spending plan because he didn’t feel it was “adequate enough to make intelligent decisions” in such a short amount of time.

“I don’t have a decoder ring for this budget,” said Mr. Kesson, who said the spending plan resembled more of an audit than a municipal budget.

Local resident Judi Staven, who sat with Mr. Kesson on a previous council, agreed. She said the 56-page budget needs more detail and that it’s hard to find the information she’s looking for.

“As a taxpayer, I want to know what’s in it,” Ms. Staven said. “It keeps getting shorter and shorter every year.”

Council President Keith Hamilton countered that all the necessary information is included in the budget and if council members or taxpayers have any questions, they’re welcome to ask. He opposed delaying the budget review, saying council members had already agreed to the process when they received the spending plan on April 10.

Portsmouth Town Council, Portsmouth budget

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.