Towns proceed slowly on taxes

Oct. 1 is the earliest that municipalities can begin collecting the new taxes - an extra 2 percentage points on hotel bills, 0.75 percent on restaurant meals. But to begin collecting the money in the fall, communities must authorize the taxes by the end of this month, and it seems very few will meet the deadline.

“You don’t want to be perceived as just implementing any new tax increase without giving it some thought,’’ said Hans Larsen, Wellesley’s executive director, adding that his town definitely won’t move to approve the local taxes by the end of the month.

“We will likely wait and see what other communities do,’’ Larsen added. “I think it’s better to get it right.’’

Wellesley could bring in almost $240,000 between October and June with the new taxes, according to state estimates. The Legislature approved the new revenue stream as part of its budget deliberations for this fiscal year, in part to ease the pain of sharp cuts in local aid and other state subsidies. Communities that miss the Aug. 31 deadline will have to wait until at least January to start collecting the taxes.

Wellesley is hardly alone in taking a wait-and-see approach. Bedford and Franklin are the only area communities to approve the taxes so far, according to the state Department of Revenue. And officials in Concord, Framingham, Lexington, Maynard, Natick, Northborough and Westborough - each poised to bring in at least $100,000 over the balance of the fiscal year if they start Oct. 1 - said they expect to miss the target date, if they approve the new taxes at all.

Officials said it is worth the delay to give residents and businesses time to weigh in on the issue and to avoid rushing through a major policy change.

“This is the kind of an issue that we have traditionally conducted the public decision-making on at annual Town Meeting,’’ said Tony Logalbo, Concord’s finance director.

With the next Town Meeting slated for April, Concord would miss out on the entire fiscal year’s collections, estimated by the state at $219,000.

“You always have to worry about putting some of your businesses at a competitive disadvantage,’’ said Carl Valente, Lexington’s town manager. His town would bring in $217,000 this fiscal year if the taxes were approved by the end of this month, but Valente said the earliest the taxes could be approved is November. “We need to engage our business community on this, our tourism committee.’’

Among the area’s smaller communities, Plainville Town Meeting voters will decide the issue this month, while Millis is planning a public discussion for next month, after the deadline.

Newton’s Board of Aldermen is expected to vote tomorrow on the hotel tax, but the meals tax has yet to make it out of committee.

Some communities have already discussed the new taxes and rejected them, at least for now. Officials in Holliston, Marlborough, Milford, and Waltham have said they won’t pursue the new revenue.

“I think there’s some sentiment that they don’t want to add another tax to local businesses and local residents,’’ said Holliston Town Administrator Paul LeBeau, explaining the decision to forgo the $26,000 the town could net this fiscal year.

But some observers said the new taxes will inevitably be adopted by most communities with any substantial hotel or restaurant base over the next couple of years.

“It is a source of revenue, so I think we need to be realistic about this,’’ said Ted Welte, president of the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce. “It’s going to be a real challenging year next year as well, so that might be the thing that pushes communities into this.’’

Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, compared the current situation with 1985, when the state first allowed local option taxes on hotel rooms. As now, Beckwith said, communities then were reluctant to be one of the first to add new taxes, but eventually nearly every municipality with any hotels implemented the tax.

“This is quite expected,’’ Beckwith said of the hesitancy in some quarters to enact the taxes immediately.

“We think that over time most communities will end up taking advantage of the options, but the point is they’re options.’’