Full-time Newport residents, with house values below $1.1 million, should not expect a property tax increase, even though the proposed city budget suggests a 3.25 percent budget increase and a nearly 4 percent tax levy increase, according to Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong.
Commercial property taxes and taxes on residents who are not full-time residents – those not living in the city seven months a year or renting their property to people living full–time in Newport (the city’s two-tier tax program) – will likely rise, the mayor says.
The mayor’s projection comes during ongoing hearings on the city’s $115 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. A series of public hearings on specific department budgets begins today at 5:30 p.m., with an overview of fire, maritime, parking, Resilience, and sustainability. The latter, Resilience, is among three super departments that are created in the budget proposal.
According to Interim City Manager Laura L. Sitrin’s budget proposal to the mayor and City Council, the increases are primarily because of “investments to critical infrastructure, a forward-looking reorganization of City departments, and general inflationary pressures” offset by last December’s property revaluation that “has significantly influenced the City’s property tax base.”
That revaluation showed an increase in the average single-family home value from $700,000 to more than $1 million.
Still in question are negotiations with the city’s largest unions, representing police, fire and city employees represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. Included in Sitrin’s budget proposal are cost-of-living adjustments. If negotiations result in salary increases, Sitrin says an “appropriated fund balance may need to be used.”
Another challenge is the school budget, projected in the interim manager’s budget to increase by 2 percent, half the increase sought by the school committee, according to School Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain.
School departments statewide are facing budget challenges, the result of the end of COVID related grants and the end of the Rhode Island Department of Education’s forgiveness for declining school enrollment.
Jermain is urging supporters to attend Wednesday’s 5:30 p.m. joint council and school committee budget hearing.
The other scheduled budget workshops and important budget-related dates are:
- Tuesday, April 30 at 5:30 p.m. – public services, planning/economic development/zoning, inspections workshop.
- Thursday, May 2 at 8:30 a.m. – utilities (water & water pollution control) workshop.
- May 8, first public hearing on the proposed operating budget.
- May 22, second public hearing on the proposed operating budget.
- June 12, third public hearing and adoption of the proposed operating budget.
We have been year round, but part time, senior residents for 25 years. We are very supportive of local schools, yet have no children in them. We are extremely supportive of all emergency services, yet rarely require them. We have never rented our home, yet we are now set aside as part time owners who now must pay higher taxes. As such, those who are like us pay higher taxes for less service, such as garbage collection. Does this really sound fair and equitable?
This article is misleading. The “mayor” has literally NOTHING to do with developing the budget. It’s created by the city staff and ok’d by the ENTIRE COUNCIL. Please stop making it seem like Newport has an actual mayor. It makes this entire website look misinformed.