Quincy avoided property tax hikes,
but big spending items lie ahead

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

By holding down spending, Quincy officials say, the city was one of the few Massachusetts communities to avoid higher property taxes last fiscal year. But with big some bills coming due, the city is counting on financing methods that don’t rely on property taxes.

According to the state’s Department of Revenue, Quincy was one of 23 communities in which the average tax bill for a single-family home did not increase in fiscal 2010, which ended June 30. Quincy was the only South Shore community to avoid an increase, a press release from the city said.

Across the state, property taxes for a single-family home in fiscal 2010 rose an average of 3.3 percent, or about $140.

Keeping taxes down has been a priority for Mayor Thomas Koch, who feels that it just isn't right to increase property taxes to pay for government projects and services, especially in this economy.

“I've talked to a lot of families and they are struggling … in these times, it has been a challenge. But we believe, in fairness to those folks, this is not the time to be raising taxes,” Koch said.

Koch said the city was able to eliminate higher tax by cutting down on a lot of spending.

“All across the board, all departments have made spending cuts in the last two years. Some of the departments like public works, parks, services have taken bigger hits so public safety and schools can take smaller hits,” he said.

Yet the ability to hold the line on taxes is causing concern for other areas of city spending. Currently, the city is facing the $1 billion reconstruction of Quincy Center, the $126 million debt to pay off the new Quincy High School, and $7 million for water meter systems being put in all over town, to name a few.

All of these things, Koch said, are being funded in other, more creative ways than simple tax dollars.

“The water meter project is one that is born by the ratepayers of water and sewer. A large part of that comes from federal stimulus money to update our systems. So that's on an enterprise fund that does not affect the tax rate,” he said.

As for Quincy Center, as the project is completed and the buildings start generating tax dollars, the reconstruction will be able to pay for itself.

“In Quincy Center, the cost will be borne by the developer, then we buy the infrastructure back,” Koch said. “We don't buy the infrastructure back until the buildings have tenants in them and taxes are coming in at a rate that will cover the commitment on the bonds on the infrastructure.”

As for Quincy High School, it’s being funded by a 0.75 percent meals surtax that was recently put into effect to pay for the development, which was launched under a previous administration.

According to Nick Puelo, the director of municipal finance for Quincy, such measures are not out of the norm for town spending.

“There really is no way we could do any of these projects within the annual budget,” Puelo said. “So what we shoot for is to develop a budget line to pay our debt payments, and every year we pay off a couple of projects that we started 15-20 years ago, and that makes room for new developments in the future....but all these big infrastructure developments we borrow for, and that's typical.”

According to the press release, the figures in the Department of Revenue report include only fiscal 2010, not the tax bills that residents will see at the end of this calendar year.