MONROE — A recommendation built into Mayor Geoffrey Thomas’s 2023-2024 budget raises the city property tax rate 6.95%, which if enacted is a differential increase of five cents per $1,000 in assessed value versus taking no increase.
A property tax is spread across all properties in the city. There is so much new construction being built lately in town that it’s causing an inverse drop in the tax rate for the everyday homeowner.
The budget calls for using 6.95% of “banked” property taxes, an authority a city can take if it didn’t take property tax increases in prior years. State law allows a yearly 1% increase. Skipping that 1% increase, like the city did in 2020, 2021 and 2022, builds this tax bank.
The city’s property tax rate in 2022 was $1.02 per $1,000 in assessed value.
Without adding banked taxes, it would fall to 0.80 per $1,000 in assessed value.
With the banked capacity, it would still fall to 0.85 per $1,000 in assessed value, the city finance office says.
For a home worth $600,000 in 2023, the city’s portion of the property tax bill would be $510 if using banked taxes versus $480 without. The same home would have been worth about $490,000 in 2022.
The city’s tax is about 11% of a Monroe homeowner’s total property tax bill. The state represents about 28% of the bill, Monroe Schools 27% and the fire service 19%.
The City Council will take its final vote on the budget Nov. 18. Public hearings were Oct. 11, 18 and 25.
The city forecasts that $55 million worth of new construction will be built over the next two years, including 180 new housing units.
Lifting the tax rate would bring in $241,063 more for the city in 2023.
That money would be allocated to continue the city’s contract for a mental health provider working with the Police Department, pay for a Human Services Coordinator job at the city, to help pay for maintaining the recording equipment in the police department’s holding cell, to make the city job of handling records requests a full-time position and pay two parks seasonal workers.
Thomas said using property taxes is a stable method for funding city needs.
“Matching predictable and consistent revenue sources, such as property tax revenues, with ongoing expenditures is generally preferred over less predictable and variable revenue sources, such as sales tax revenues,” Thomas said by email. “This is why the recommended budget includes the use of banked capacity for these expenditures — matching ongoing expenditures with predictable and consistent revenues. The city has not used banked capacity since 2019.”
