State Senator Warns of "Massive" Residential Tax Hike for Providence

State Senator Warns of "Massive" Residential Tax Hike for Providence

An elected official in Providence is warning of massive tax increases for residential property owners in the city.

A document prepared at the request of Providence officials but not made public until reported by GoLocal revealed how the revaluation of Providence properties, especially home values, is spiking, while commercial revaluations only went up 17% on average. 

“What those ratios mean, with the residential [assessments] going up by it looks like 40% on average and commercial only going up by 17%, that means that there has to be a net dump of overall tax payments from commercial into residential," said State Senator Sam Bell, who represents District 5 in Providence. 

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Currently, state law says that for the city, the commercial tax rate cannot be more than twice the non-owner-occupied rate, and cannot be more than 3.5 times the owner-occupied rate. 

"So it probably, on its own, is going to more than a 4% tax increase [for residential]. And that’s on top of the Mayor talking about going above the 4% tax cap, and on top of the big apartments being pulled out of the commercial rate, you add this factor from the assessment on top, and it’s going to be a massive tax increase on residential that’s required under state law, if the law isn’t changed," said Bell. 

"This was a Smiley administration proposal. If Smiley doesn’t change this law or ask us to change the law, then we’re going to run into this massive problem," said Bell of the current tax rate ratio. "I think it’s important that homeowners know and renters know what GoLocal’s story revealed - that commerical [assessed values] only went up by 17% means a tax increase on top of everything else."

 

Renters Too Get Slammed

Bell spoke to what he was hearing from his constituents.

“People are very upset about the tax assessment,” said Bell. “It’s been a very aggressive tax assessment, especially for multi-family homes where a lot of our low-income and middle-class people [live] who can’t afford to buy a house, that live in a triple decker in a small rental, that gets really slammed under this system.”

“Many people assume that the rate will be adjusted, the rate will lower, because everyone's assessments went up. Many people are assuming, and a lot of my constituents think, okay, so [assesments] went up, but everyone else's is also going up, so as a result, by the end of the day, we're going to be fine - nope,” said Bell. “That's not the case, and it's important that people know that.”

 

City Finances in Focus - Cost Reductions

Moreover, Bell says he thinks the city “doesn’t actually need the revenue” that the Smiley Administration says it does. 

“I think it’s actually possible for the city to handle this without the levy increase,” said Bell. 

And Bell, a progressive Democrat, is in favor of finding government efficiencies. 

“It would actually require the city to put forward a competent financial management policy. That includes finding real reductions of real waste,” said Bell. “There is a lot of this in the police department. I understand that things have been contractually bargained, but there are a number of cases in which overtime costs are driven up, by decisions that are not contractual. And the way we have police handle arraignments, and actually prosecuting everything at the arraignment stage, we blow up the time costs with the prosecution system with more prosecutions that honestly even an aggressively conservative [district attorney] would go forward at the misdemeanor level.”

“I think that there are just a ton of other ways that money can be saved within the city budget. However, that requires actually making decisions around actual savings and not around harmful cuts, and my big concern is that we are [if the General Assembly] defeats the tax increase bill, the mayor is going to use it as an excuse to cut everything he wants to cut and couldn't possibly get away with, without this excuse,” said Bell.

“I know that people are working on putting forward ideas, and one I want to highlight is my colleague in the House, [Representative] Rebecca Kislak has put forward a bill around allowing additional revenue from an additional conveyance tax for high-value property that would actually be a local contribution, and I think that is a good proposal,” said Bell.