At the Council’s Committee on Finance meeting held last night, Dante Bellini, City Controller, shared with the Committee the current Tax Stabilization Agreement (TSA) Portfolio. The presentation projected year-over-year cumulative added revenue for the City of Providence. Indicating that as these TSAs mature and become fully taxable, they will add more than $454-Milliion cumulatively to the city’s tax roll by 2040.
“TSAs are a tool that municipalities use to help build its tax base, and they work,” stated Councilman and Chairman of the Committee on Finance John J. Igliozzi, Esq., (Ward 7). “TSAs are important economic generators for cities like Providence. A robust TSA program will spur growth and development and increase our tax base so that we can take the burden of higher property taxes off our residents. If these properties were not developed and were not given a TSA, we would only see tax revenues of just over $6-Millon a year instead of the cumulative growth in tax revenue as each TSA matures.”
The City currently has around 70 TSAs in place, inclusive of the five commercial and residential properties under the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission’s authority. These TSAs run from housing, commercial, and mixed-use properties throughout the City.
“Providence is competing with our growing tax exemption base, which makes up for approximately 40% of the City’s taxable property. Coupled with the economic competition we face from our neighboring cities and towns becoming more economically attractive – whether it’s their taxes or economic development packages, we must remain competitive. Further, we are also competing with our neighboring states. We need to be more macro in our thinking, and that’s what the TSA program is about. We are looking at how we can keep our City moving forward. We need to let developers know that we are open for business, and we have to create economic development packages to spur new growth to continue increasing our tax base,” continued Chairman John J. Igliozzi, Esq.
In the last year, the City has collected $128-Thousand from TSAs for the City Council Parks and Recreational Trust Fund Account and will collect an additional $134-Thousand in the coming fiscal year. This account will continue to grow as the TSA program moves forward; to date, there has been $313-Thousand collected in totality for this account. The Trust Account is overseen by the City’s Superintendent of Parks and can only be utilized for brick and mortar projects like building or rehabbing parks or recreation centers.
Individuals can view the Tax Stabilization Agreement Portfolio here: http://bit.ly/PVDTSAPF.
