Ward 5 Councilor David A. Murphy is among those who are hopeful that on-going efforts to rezone King Street will make that area more attractive for commercial development.
NORTHAMPTON – The city’s fiscal 2012 budget sailed through the City Council relatively peacefully Thursday on first reading, although some aspects of the $93.5 million plan remain unsettled.
The council actually approved $70.8 million in spending for the general fund, the amount over which it has oversight. The remainder of the $77.3 general fund consists of revenues outside the council’s purview, such as state aid and the $1.7 million ambulance fund. In separate votes, the council gave preliminary approval to the water, sewer and solid waste enterprise funds, which are self-regenerating. When added to the general fund, the enterprise funds bring the total cost of running the city for fiscal 2012 to $93.5 million.
The measures passed 7-0 on first reading. The final vote will come at the council’s next meeting later this month. With the council’s two main budget hawks absent, there was no discussion about individual line items. Ward 7 Councilor Eugene C. Tacy was not in attendance due to a personal matter. Angela Plassmann, the other councilor who has been critical of city spending, resigned in April amid turmoil over a zoning violation on her property.
In recent years, Mayor Mary Clare Higgins has had to either cut jobs or seek a Proposition 2½ override to achieve a level-service budget. The 2012 budget has not required either to date, although Higgins is asking the various unions that represent city employees to forego contracted raises and cost of living increases. She is still in negotiations with those unions. Higgins also asked city workers to agree to changes in their health insurance coverage that result in higher co-pays. All but the firefighter’s union have agreed to those.
Finance Director Susan Wright said the School Department budget has no money for pay raises and that the School Committee has compiled a list of cuts should money have to be funneled into salary increases. Among those cuts is the loss of 7.5 teaching positions.
At Large Councilor Jesse M. Adams said he feels the budget is a good one.
“I think it adequately reflects the priorities and values of the city,” he said.
Adams said he was pleased that the budget came with an update on the city’s success in implementing its Sustainable Northampton plan, a long-term effort to maintain a high quality of life here.
“Some people said that plan would gather dust,” he said.
Some $66 million in budget revenues are coming from local taxes, with residential property owners bearing about 80 percent of the burden and commercial owners the rest. Council President David J. Narkewicz noted that the state’s contribution to the budget is also at an all-time low, which prompted some discussion about broadening the commercial tax base.
“It’s something we talked about and has been talked about and will be talked about in the future,” Narkewicz said.
Ward 5 Councilor David A. Murphy is among those who are hopeful that on-going efforts to rezone King Street will make that area more attractive for commercial development. Murphy said residential property owners once accounted for 75 percent of local tax revenues, five percent less than they contribute today.
Also pending in the budget plan is final approval by the council of Higgins’ proposal to raise fines for parking violations. Under her plan, tickets for meter violations would go up by $5 and fines for other infractions would rise by $10. The council has approved those measures in first reading.