WESTFIELD – The City Council, for the fifth year in a row, voted to adopt a residential shift of 1.63, which will result in a resident tax rate of $18.54 per $1,000 of value, up from the 2014 Fiscal Year rate of $18.18. The 2015 fiscal year commercial, industrial and personal (CIP) property tax rate will increase from the 2014 rate of $33.84 to $34.69 per $1,000 of value.
The new residential rate will result in an increase of $81 for a residential property assesed at $225,000, the mean average in the city, and will increase $454.75 for CIP property with an assessed value of $535,000, the mean average of commercial, industrial and personal property.
At-large Councilor Cindy Harris made a motion to set a residential shift of 1.71 which would have resulted in a one cent increase to $18.19 per $1,000 of value, an annual increase of $2.25 for the mean average property.
The CIP rate would have risen to $36.39 under the 1.71 shift factor, resulting in an annual increase of $1,364.25 on the mean average of CIP property assessed at $535,000
The council never voted on that motion. At-large Councilor David A. Flaherty offered an amendment, the 1.63 shift factor which was adopted by a 9-4 vote, with Flaherty, Harris, Ward 1 Councilor Christopher Keefe and Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell voting against that shift factor.
The residential shift vote was actually anticlimactic, coming after a 7-6 vote to add $1.6 million to the levy, the other major component of setting the tax rate.
The Council, on a 10-2 vote last June, slashed $3,232,772, roughly three month’s premium payments, from the city’s Health Insurance line item, knowing that it would have to later return that line item.
Councilors opposed to adding $1.6 million, one half of what was cut last June, to the levy said that rejecting the $1.6 million addition to the levy would enable the council to set the lowest tax rate possible, even while acknowledging that the $3.2 million would have to be returned to that line item.
”The $3.2 million cut was not to cut the budget. It was to reduce taxes,” Flaherty said. “Our goal was to reduce taxes. We knew we would have to put money back into the Health (Trust) Fund.”
“This is the time to vote ‘no’ to get to a tax cut,” Flaherty said. “If we approve this (vote), it will transfer it to the taxpayers.”
Keefe, chairman of the Finance Committee, said the council had two choices to return the funding.
“We will have to make a refund to the health fund by June 1, either from free cash or stabilization,” Keefe said. “This 1.6 million added to the levy will be paid by the city’s taxpayers.”
O’Connell said that she has served five terms on the City Council “and this is the first time in those five terms we’ve been able to give taxpayers a little break.”
“People have been begging us to keep taxes as low as possible,” O’Connell said. “This is our one chance to give residents a break.”
Councilors supporting the motion to add the $1.6 million said failing to approve the motion would drain the city’s cash reserves and could result in municipal layoffs.
Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean, who is also a member of the Finance Committee, called the June cut a “shell game that I’m beginning to regret doing” which will drain the city’s reserve funds.
“All we did was offset this. It was the wrong decision to make,” Crean said. “In a couple of months we’ll be back here to lay people off… and you can forget about any construction projects or capital purchases.”
Ward 3 Councilor Brian Hoose warned that one snowstorm similar to the 2012 Halloween storm could cost the city a million dollars and if more than one major storm occurs this winter “we’d find our reserve (funds) depleted, then we’d be laying people off.”
Hoose said the city has “had excellent reviews by the bond (rating) companies, and we’ve been recognized that we’re a city on the move in a positive financial sense.”
“We need to have fiscal responsibility,” Hoose said. “Don’t eliminate all of our (reserve) funds and live off our next paycheck. We’ve been doing well as stated by the bond agencies. Let’s continue to do what works.”
At-large Councilor Brian Sullivan said the $1.6 million is just the first half of the $3.2 million which will be returned to the health insurance account.
“We don’t have $6 million in free cash anymore. We just appropriated a lot of that tonight,” Sullivan said. “So we’re going to drain the stabilization fund. We have that there for a reason. We worked hard to put it there.
“Yes, we’re trying to give both residents and businesses a break without being foolish,” Sullivan said. “You can’t spend a dollar seven times.”
