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City Tax Rate Increases for 2009

by Bill Dusty

The Springfield City Council voted 6-3 this past Monday on a tax rate hike for both residential and commercial properties in the city. Councilors Jose Tosada, Bruce Stebbins and Timothy Rooke voted against the increases, as written. The increases for Fiscal Year 2009 would bring the residential rate from $16.03 (per $1,000) to $17.89. For businesses, the rate would go from $32.04 (per $1,000) to 36.98.

Residential property taxes would make up 60% of the property tax revenue for the coming year, with commercial rates taking up and estimated 39.83%.

“The issue before the city council was not whether to raise taxes or not,” said City Councilor Patrick Markey, who voted in favor of the rate increases, in an email to the Intruder. “Not raising taxes was unfortunately not an option. The debate was over who should bear a greater proportion of the burden. The chamber [of Commerce] was pushing a budget that would have minimized business taxes at the expense of residents. Residents wanted to shift the burden of increased taxes to businesses. There were no good options. Taxes were going up. In the end, as much as it killed me to vote against business, I sided with the residents.”

Rooke, meanwhile, said he voted “no” on the rate increase because he felt that business and residential tax rates should be kept “as close to a fair balance” as possible.

According to this Republican article, the rate hikes for 2009 will amount to a 15.4% increase for business and 11.6% increase for residential properties.

At Thursday’s Finance Control Board meeting, where the tax rate hikes were approved by the Board, it was announced, too, that the average single-family home value had decreased from $151,500 in 2008 to an estimated $139,300 for 2009. The 2009 tax increase would bring the average annual single-family tax bill to $2,492 (up slightly from 2008′s $2,429).

Tax bills are due to be mailed out January 1st.

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Posted by Bill Dusty on Dec 18th, 2008 and filed under Cities & Towns, City Hall. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.