Woonsocket Budget Commission Sends New Supplemental Tax Plan To Delegation

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the payments required for the supplemental tax. The supplemental bill will be due one month after its mailing. 

Break out your calculators again, and keep them handy - Woonsocket's General Assembly members have a new supplemental tax proposal that spreads the $2.5 million burden across all residential classes.

Forget the Homestead Exemption reduction - car tax combo the Budget Commission approved Feb. 26. Instead, all residential property and commercial-residential properties with 11 units or more will each get a 4.4 percent supplemental tax bill due one month after taxpayers receive their bills. Vehicle owners will get a 12.5 percent supplemental tax bill:

Residential: $1.42 per $1,000 value

Commercial (11 units and above): $1.68 per $1,000 value

Vehicle: $5.82 per $1,000 value

The new bills will raise $1 million from vehicle owners, and $1.5 million from residential property owners.

That plan may yet change, according to Budget Commission member and Town Council President John Ward. "It's like sprinting on the beach," Ward said: The ground under your feet keeps shifting while you're working hard to make progress. He made the observation Tuesday afternoon following the vote to approve the new plan, minutes after exchanging text messages with Sen. Roger Picard (D-Dist. 20), about the development.

As with the former supplemental tax plan, the $2.5 million raised (actually $2,496,000, according to Ward) is one element of a multi-faceted plan to wrest the city from financial insolvency within five years. 

Ward said during the Budget Commission's most recent meeting on the plan with the entire General Assembly delegation in executive session Tuesday (they also met at the State House on the issue March 12), the city's representatives asked the Commission to put their best plan forward for them to introduce at the State House, with the understanding that changes might be made before it passes. 

The shift in the supplemental tax burden was suggested during the meetings by Sen. Marc Cote (D-Dist. 24), Ward said. "We should make it as affordable as possible," Ward said. 

The supplemental tax bill sent to Woonsocket's delegates also includes enabling legislation to allow the city to create an elderly tax exmemption.