Portsmouth Town Council receives budget asking $54 million

April 15, 2008

By Gina Macris
Journal Staff Writer

PORTSMOUTH — The Town Council last night received a proposed operating budget of $54,073,447, including a request of $34,611,083 from the schools, with the entire package representing an overall increase of 3.95 percent over the current spending plan.

Town Administrator Robert G. Driscoll conveyed the budget with the briefest of summaries, leaving extended discussion to future meetings.

The proposal calls for a 5 percent increase on the dollar amount of the entire tax levy — the maximum allowed for the fiscal year beginning July 1 by new property tax relief legislation.

That expansion would correspond to a tax increase of less than 3.5 percent, Driscoll said, although the actual tax rate will decline as a result of revaluation.

The increase in spending cannot keep pace with the growth in the levy because some of the new property tax revenue must be used to offset a loss in revenue from the state, the administrator said in his budget message.

Driscoll introduced his budget package with two cartoons. One depicts the governor standing on an inverted “soap” box announcing, “I refuse to raise taxes on the people of Rhode Island.”

The other has the governor saying, “We’ll make you do it,” as he is wrapping his arm around the shoulder of a hapless, bug-eyed man representing Rhode Island cities and towns.

General revenue-sharing from the state is expected to decline by $150,000, Driscoll said.

A letter from School Committee Chairwoman Sylvia Wedge conveyed the committee’s request for $34.6 million — an overall increase of 3.47 percent over current school spending.

Wedge warned that the schools cannot balance their budget if they do not receive all their projected revenues — including a total of $700,000 in capital expenses historically supported by the town.

Driscoll’s budget, meanwhile, included half the School Committee’s capital request.

For the second consecutive year, Driscoll proposed eliminating support to youth and civic organizations except for town public service agencies. The Town Council agreed last year to retain minimal allocations to many of the organizations.

A year of fiscal tumult in the 2006-07 budget cycle put the town in a hard-pressed position financially, requiring long-term strategies to shore up financial reserves, pursue revenue through user fees and grants, and dig out from under a backlog of work.

In the next budget, Driscoll would add one police officer and one firefighter, although the chief of the Police and Fire departments have each asked for four new staff members — as they did last year.

Money would be set aside to increase the town’s general fund, and Driscoll would also pursue increases in user fees.

In other business last night, the council approved in principle a shift that would make the Portsmouth Redevelopment Agency part of a single entity dealing with all surplus Navy property on Aquidneck Island.

The Navy has made it clear that it would prefer to negotiate the disposal surplus land in Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth with one regional redevelopment agency, according to Frederick W. Faerber 3rd.

Faerber, chairman of the Portsmouth Redevelopment Agency, said that the disposition of the Navy’s Burma Road — and the utilities running alongside it — are a precursor to selling off any other surplus property on Aquidneck Island.

An island-wide redevelopment agency would allow the three communities to deal jointly with issues regarding the road and its utilities, which cross town lines, Faerber said.

And a single agency would streamline otherwise duplicative costs for advertising, public meetings, and other requirements, Faerber said. Moreover, an island-wide agency would be more likely than three local agencies to garner federal grant money for professional support for redevelopment, he said.

Portsmouth would be represented on a regional redevelopment agency as a subcommittee that would retain full autonomy over reuse of surplus Navy land within the town, Faerber said.