With one major asterisk, City Manager Tom Aspell proposed a roughly $155 million budget to city councilors for their review, which would rely on reserve funds to carry a 4% increase in the tax rate next year. 

That total excludes more than $38 million for a new police station that councilors are expected to consider in the coming months. While on paper the budget is less than last year’s $170 million package, total spending is not expected to go down. 

With the police station included, the total budget rises to $193,261,595, a 13.6% increase from the 2025 approved budget. 

“This budget was prepared in the midst of very uncertain times: costs continue to rise, significant ambiguity exists around the impact of tariffs on supplies and equipment costs and availability, compensation costs are up and investment income is down from a year ago,” Aspell wrote in a letter introducing his proposal. “The city continues to strive to be more efficient, effective, and responsive to community needs than ever before.”

The estimated 4% tax rate bump tied to this budget would carry a 39-cent increase in the city portion of the tax rate, bringing it to $10.23 per $1,000 of assessed value. That means a $156 increase to the tax bill of a $400,000 house. Notably, the citywide property revaluation currently in process won’t go into effect this year. 

Aspell’s full proposed budget can be found on the city’s website.

Major Projects

The budget for capital projects would come in just under $70 million, $31.6 million included in this proposal plus the more than $38 million cost of the police station. That’s up from $53 million in 2025.

It would mean:

■$5.85 million for the Beaver Meadow Clubhouse — this is more than the current estimate to renovate it and far less than the $8 million rebuild plan recommended to City Councilors. More info to come.

■Pushing off major repairs to the Loudon Road bridge. This is a $23 million project, previously planned for this year, that would overwhelmingly be covered by state and federal funds. Aspell has told the Monitor he has no reason to expect a delay in federal funding. 

■$5.9 million for major work at the Hall Street Wastewater Plant, which has been operating at a fraction of its capacity. The city anticipates a $27 million investment in the facility in a few years. 

■$1.5 million to finalize a design for Memorial Field, half of which would be covered by the school district. 

What’s driving the tax increase

Debt taken out for major projects doesn’t hit the tax rate until the following year, so the projects above aren’t what’s behind the just under 4% tax bump. Here’s what is: 

■The general fund, the part that relies on tax dollars, would go up 4.2%, while the total assessed property value in the city only rose by 1.6% in the last year.

■Debt payments for previously approved projects is up 7.2%

■With new contracts in place for all but one of the city’s unions, and with police and fire getting a 5% annual raises as part of those new contracts, pay for city employees overall would go up 6.2%. Benefits were more of a bright spot: health insurance rates held constant and state pension rates declined.

■While both the fire and police departments are running with multiple vacancies, the fire department’s overtime budget would rise by 30% in this budget, though the $2.1 million set aside for it is still significantly less than the $2.7 million in overtime expected to be paid by the end of this year. A single-digit percentage increase in overtime, by comparison, is expected at the police department. 

■More than half a million in unassigned fund balance — city money without a set purpose — would be used to blunt the spending increase, roughly the same amount as in 2025. 

Aspell will present his proposal to city councilors Thursday night in the Council Chambers. Capital projects will be discussed on May 22. Public hearings will occur at the end of a string of presentations, just before the Council finalizes the budget on June 5.

 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.