The Brunswick Town Council on Monday narrowly advanced a budget plan calling for the largest tax increase in recent memory.
The $92.1 million budget plan, which includes municipal, school and county spending, marks a 9.2% increase over the current fiscal year and would raise property taxes 7.4%, nearly double last year’s tax hike. That means for a house assessed at $400,000, property taxes would increase about $640.
Of the council’s nine members, five — Councilors James Mason, Abby King, Dan Ankeles, Jennifer Hicks and Nathaniel Shed — voted to keep the budget as is.
“This is not an aspirational budget,” King said. “This is a borderline bare-bones budget. This is a maintenance budget. … This is what we need to keep our public safety employees in place. This is what we need to keep staff in our schools.”
Councilors David Watson, Steve Walker, Kathy Wilson and Sande Updegraph proposed reducing the budget to get the tax hike down to around 6%, but they didn’t offer specific cost-cutting proposals.
Watson said the last time the town faced such a dramatic tax hike was about 20 years ago.
“People were not happy,” he said.
He proposed paring the budget down to reduce the tax hike down to between 5% and 6%. He targeted the $52.9 million school budget and said it’s a “problem” that some positions that were paid for with federal coronavirus relief money are being moved into the local budget because that funding is expiring. That — along with higher school staff salaries and benefits, higher utility prices, higher special education costs and an anticipated increase in enrollment — was cited by schools Superintendent Phil Potenziano as the main drivers of the 7.1% spending hike in the budget, which would have a 4.79% tax impact.
Councilor Kathy Wilson also targeted the school budget.
“The municipal side of the budget has taken a hit every year to support the schools,” she said. “I have to remember I represent everybody, not just the school kids.”
She was worried about the effect of the tax hike on residents with limited income, both young and old.
“I myself am on a very limited budget,” she said. “I live with my sister in a house we grew up. … I get $1,242 a month from Social Security and that’s what I have to live on, which is why I’m doing other little things to earn money.”
Councilor Dan Ankeles said Brunswick is among municipalities across the state reckoning with inflated budgets. He warned against spending cuts, especially this year.
“If we do not think in the long term, we are going to pay for it,” he said. “If we think this 7.4% increase is bad, it’s going to get so much worse if we don’t hold the line on town services, if we don’t hold the line on keeping our educators.”
The $37.2 million municipal budget plan marks a 12.3% increase in spending and would raise property taxes 2.3%. Employee salaries and benefits rose by nearly $1.8 million, while an additional $577,014 was planned for eight new staff positions and a $501,375 debt-service payment is due on the town’s purchase of 283 acres around Maquoit Bay last year for possible conservation.
The $1.9 million county budget, which the town does not control, represents a 10.4% spending hike and would have a 0.3% tax impact.
Mason called this year’s budget process “very difficult” but said the municipal and school portions shouldn’t be altered.
“They reflect needs,” he said. “I don’t think they reflect wants.”
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