Milton council approves taxation ordinance

After back-to-back years with large property tax increases, Milton Town Council passed an ordinance it hopes will make future increases smaller and more incremental.

The ordinance enables the town to use both the Consumer Price Index and the Employment Cost Index as the basis for future tax increases. For reference, the Consumer Price Index is an index that measures the change in prices paid by U.S. consumers, while the Employment Cost Index measures the changes in employee compensation each quarter. 

Councilman Tom Arkinson, who worked on the ordinance with town staff, told his fellow council members June 3 that the idea is to use the two indexes averaged together to determine the town budget and the impact on the property tax rate, which is the town’s main source of income along with realty transfer taxes. 

Mayor John Collier said, “This is an ordinance that kind of establishes a baseline potential tax increase.” He added that the ordinance gives town council latitude as to what, if any, tax increase is warranted, based on what the town’s revenue and expenses look like in any given budget year. 

“This is not a half-baked idea. The last two years, we had to do some pretty big tax increases. We enjoyed a long period of time without any tax increases. This is part of what we hope is a way to recover from the place that we are,” Collier said. 

In the past, Collier has been critical of previous administrations that did not do tax increases to keep up with the rising costs of running the town and keeping services at the level where residents are happy. He wants this ordinance to serve as a way to eliminate the need to do large increases and instead raise taxes more incrementally to keep up with the cost of services.

“This will be an easier transition for everybody. Nobody likes big tax increases,” Collier said. 

Vice Mayor Lee Revis-Plank said she hopes the ordinance will allow the town to be more transparent with residents about the methodology for future increases and will allow residents on fixed incomes to plan ahead.

“By tying a possible annual increase to an index or a combination of indexes that are readily available for you, the public, to take a look at, you can do a better job of budgeting in anticipation instead of waiting for the last minute for the surprise to come out,” she said.

Council approved the ordinance unanimously. Budget talks for the 2025 fiscal year are expected to begin in July.