Ward vows to try to hold down taxes

As long as city leaders can keep the municipal budget in check, most homeowners won’t see an unusually large property tax hike next year, a new analysis of the city revaluation data showed.
“We will definitely try, to the best of our ability, to make things within reason,” said Mayor Art Ward.
Ward said that with the city as well as its residents facing soaring energy costs and rising prices, it’s crucial to hold spending down by setting priorities that allow taxes to remain in check.
He told a department head meeting at City Hall this week that administrators should keep taxpayers in mind when they’re preparing spending requests for the coming fiscal year, which begins in July.
City Assessor Rich Lasky said that his initial estimate that the average homeowner will face about a $400 property tax increase based on new assessments was off the mark.
Further review of the data, he said, leads him to the conclusion “that there will be little or no oval effect to the average single-family homeowner due to this revaluation.”
However, he said, he’s only making an estimate and cautioned that revaluation remains “a work in progress” and other factors will also influence tax bills.
Ward said he hasn’t asked department chiefs at City Hall to aim for a specific budget increase this time around, but may later. He said the budget preparation process hasn’t yet begun in earnest.
For now, the mayor said, he wanted underlings to have “a broad expectation of where the administration is going.”
Ward said he is concerned mainly with setting realistic priorities that focus on completing projects that are already underway.
He said it’s important to finish what’s been started before engaging in new projects.A memorandum that Lasky wrote to Ward, the City Council and Finance Chairman Rich Miecznikowski about revaluation is online here.

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