Manchester’s Tax Hikes

By Jim on November 13th, 2008

Manchester did exactly the wrong thing. They should have cut spending not raised taxes. You don’t tax your way out of budget problems. When are people going to learn? You make the cuts necessary to lower spending.

Taxpayers in Manchester will see a 4.7 percent tax increase this year as city revenues continue to dry up, officials announced yesterday.

The new tax rate will cost the owner of a $225,000 home an extra $176 when tax bills go out later this month. For the owner of a $250,000 home, the increase will be $195.

The tax hike is not a surprise, but it is larger than the one the Board of Mayor and Aldermen projected when they put the city budget to bed in June. At the time, board members had resigned themselves to a tax hike of 3.7 percent.

Since then, the economy has taken a turn for the worse, and several revenue sources — car registrations, for one — have come up short of expectations. Bill Sanders, the city finance officer, is now projecting a $1.7-million revenue shortfall this year.

Several aldermen described the situation as painful, but unavoidable.

“Am I pleased? Absolutely not,” Alderman Mike Garrity said. “But I think it’s something beyond our control, on the revenue side.”

The new tax rate, set by the state Department of Revenue Administration, is $17.35 per $1,000 of valuation. The rate means the owner of a home worth $225,000 will pay $3,904 in city property taxes.