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The town has already collected $4 million of a possible $13 million in extra money hidden from the budget process.
News & Commentary
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Town Reserve Funds in Tiverton and Portsmouth
Another comment that one frequently hears from people who think the town ought to have big money in its reserves, at the cost of the highest tax rate in the area, compares Tiverton’s reserve account to Portsmouth’s. What’s funny about this is that the same people will turn around and say that we absolutely can’t compare Portsmouth, with its lower tax rates and higher-performing schools, to Tiverton. It’s true that, as of the town’s audit for the fiscal year ending last June, Portsmouth’s $6.1 million in reserves were 9.4% of its total expenditures. By comparison, Tiverton’s $2.5 million were 4.8% of its expenditures. (Note that Tiverton typically calculates reserve percentages by operating expenses, which are smaller and would make the reserves look bigger, but when different towns discuss these things, they sometimes use different reference points.) The first question that people should ask about this comparison isn’t whether Tiverton should increase taxes to match Portsmouth. It’s how Portsmouth got to the point that it has more reserves as well as a lower tax rate. It doesn’t work to say that Portsmouth residents are wealthier, because Portsmouth’s town budget is a smaller percentage of residents’ income than in Tiverton. The real …
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Resources
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Resources
Documents
Links to documents relevant to town government that may or may not be available elsewhere.
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