The Salisbury City Council is set to hold a final hearing tonight on the city’s $53 million budget that could include the town’s first property tax rate hike in years.
More than half of the nearly 11-thousand property owners would see an increase in their tax bills while the rest could see a slight decrease.
The Salisbury Daily Times reports that the rate will jump by 65 cents per $1-thousand of assessed property value just to keep the revenue from the property tax the same in the face of declining property values resulting from the Great Recession.
The City Council will also consider Mayor Jim Ireton’s request to lower water and sewer rates by 6.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the budget spends $1.4 million thousand for pay raises that includes a 2 per increase for city workers and to maintain a pay hike for police approved by the council last fall.
Another $74-thousand will go to create a downtown redevelopment office with one new employee focused on attracting new businesses
