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Rye City Manager Scott Pickup said the budget continues to repair the city’s fund balance and is critically important to the city’s Triple-A rating.
“It’s a responsible budget, you might say a lean budget, but I get the sense it’s something you can work with,” Mayor Doug French said to Pickup prior to the council’s vote.
He replied, “Would the library like more money? Absolutely. Recreation would love to have more people doing parks maintenance. DPW would like to have more guys doing trash and snow.” Pickup added, “We’re going to maintain our service levels … reinvest our infrastructure and talk about these other issues in a more long-term, strategic way.”
Here are some key points about the budget: • The adopted property tax rate will increase taxes for the owner of a home assessed at the city average of $26,200 by about $86 a year over the 2012 budget. Under the new budget, the property tax rate will be $148.91 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. In Rye, a home assessed at the city average has a market value of $1.44 million. • The 2013 property tax levy is $20,563,249. The levy tax remains $117,000 below the state-mandated tax levy cap. • Revenues budgeted for 2013 – including property taxes – are $30.9 million, up $1 million, or 3.3 percent, from the 2012 adopted budget of $29.9 million. The City Council revised the budget earlier this month to include $40,000 in building permit revenue, as well as $25,000 in sales tax revenue. • Expenditures for 2013 are about $31.7 million, up $1.6 million from the 2012 budget. The 2013 expenditures include capital spending, while there was no budgeted capital spending in 2012.
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