City Of Portland: Interim City Manager Presents FY23 Recommended Budget

Portland ME

27 April, 2022

1:53 PM

Description

Press release from the City of Portland: April 26, 2022 Interim Manager West explained, "thanks to our efforts with our state and regional partners, we learned on April 25th that the City is expected to receive a portion of one-time state funding to address emergency housing of homeless individuals. While this is welcome news, the 5.5% tax rate increase currently included in this budget may still need to be adjusted and/or additional cuts imposed since this one-time funding is significantly less than we anticipated. We plan to work diligently with the Council to address this issue through the upcoming Finance Committee budget review process." Interim Manager West continued, "while the budget challenges we face are very serious, it is also important for me to balance the needs of our workforce. As a result, this budget does include funding for some retention strategies given the extremely tight labor market and the significant number of vacancies we have. I recognize that the pandemic has certainly exacerbated the challenges that local government's face with recruitment and retention, and that is why the proposed budget includes cost of living adjustments and capping City health insurance premium increases at 2% for employees." The 5.5% City side tax rate increase for municipal services means the city-side mill rate is $6.56 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The impact on an average homeowner with a property valued at $350,000 would be $119. The Finance Committee will have its first budget review meeting on April 28, 2022 at 5:00 PM. It will then meet throughout May before the budget goes to the full Council for review and adoption. To read the full budget recommendation letter and to follow along with the Finance Committee and Council review/budget adoption process, please visit this webpage. This press release was produced by the City of Portland. The views expressed here are the author's own.