Marshfield Common Council Leaving the Door Open for Tax Rate Increase
Wednesday, June 27th, 2018 -- 11:55 AM
(WDLB) -Sighting the need for more revenue, Marshfield aldermen are leaving the door open for a tax rate increase for next year.The Common Council voted 7-to-3 last night in favor of setting a 2019 budget parameter which would direct city Administrator Steve Barg to develop next year's spending plan with an increase in the tax rate close to or up to the maximum allowed under the state's current levy limits.
Berg: "Last year, if we'd done the full amount the state would have allowed, we could have increased our tax rate by 4%. Certainly, I'm not advocating that. I didn't last year and I wouldn't this year. I will tell you this, I'm a fiscal conservative by nature. Always have been. But, we have, by embracing a new compensation plan, by setting out a fairly aggressive approach in what we would like to do in street repairs and maintenance; there's costs. There are costs. And we left some money on the table in past years by having a flat tax rate for almost 10 years, which is kinda, I think, part of what we've been catching up on a little bit the last few years. I mean, I'll try to carve every dollar out I can to try and pair it back. But there are some pressures going. And some of it has been because the increase over the past 12/13 years have been collectively minimal, which probably made many of our residents happy, but not it makes things a little more difficult to balance."
Barg noted there have been minimal increases in the city's budget in each of the last five years, for a total tax increase of two-point-eight percent--which he said is not keeping up with everything the city needs or wants to do. Alderman Steve Mac Swain argued for the biggest allowable tax increase to get the city caught up on roads and other projects.
Swain: "You're not going to have bathrooms. You're not going to have a pool. We might as well just stop any discussions about that stuff and might as well talk about what would happen if we win the lottery if we're not willing to raise taxes. If we're not willing to take the bite as politicians then we can never go to anybody and ask for a referendum for anything. We won't have any credibility. If we want to show people that we are positive about our city; we are investing in the city when we're spending money on it. This money isn't being used to erect statues of us or anything. We're investing in it."
Rebecca Spiros was one of three Council members to vote against allowing for the possible tax hike. She said it would be putting a bigger burden on a smaller number of property owners, as more and more people choose to rent or live outside the city.
Spiros: "You have people who rent and rent and rent and rent and they stay renting. Or you have executives of your companies or your physicians of you hospital that move just out of city limits. They don't pay a thing. That's my concern. The people who live here are an aging population. They owned their homes for years. And they continue to accept the responsibility for everything, while we have all these people who come here. How much does our traffic increase during the day? They come here. They drive on our roads. They use our facilities. They don't pay a stinkin' dime."
Aldermen Tom Witzel and Jason Zaleski joined Spiros in voting against leaving the door open to a possible tax increase. The state allows municipalities to capture the value of new construction or higher equalized values through increases in local property tax rates. From roughly 2004 through 2013, Marshfield's tax rate was essentially held steady. The city has implemented increases of less than one-percent in each of the past five years.
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