By Adam Swift
City finance director Richard Viscay presented a balanced $294.6 million Fiscal Year budget to the city council during the first night of ways and means committee budget hearings on Monday night.
The council will be asked to appropriate a total of $274,420,435 for the budget. The majority of the remainder of the budget figure is for state assessments that do not have to be appropriated by the council, but are netted against the amount of state revenue the city receives, according to Viscay.
Last year, the council appropriated just over $262 million for the FY25 operating budget.
“This represents to the council that you have a balanced, responsible budget for FY25,” said Viscay. “No one-time revenues are used for general fund operations and they are very reasonable revenue estimates and a spending plan we are proposing here on behalf of Mayor (Patrick) Keefe. I think these are responsible but realistic revenue requests and I encourage you to vote on the budget as submitted.”
The biggest source of revenue for the budget comes in through property taxes.
For FY25, Viscay said Revere will have an estimated tax levy of just over $120 million. This includes $2.8 million in natural Proposition 2-½ growth, as well as an estimated $3.5 million in new growth from new construction in the city, according to Viscay.
Just over three-quarters of the property tax revenue is from residential property, and the remainder is from commercial and industrial property.
Local receipts such as motor vehicle excise, hotel room, and meals taxes account for just over $20 million of the estimated revenue.
Viscay said the city has not contemplated any revenue increases for FY25, but that it does plan to do a survey of fees over the summer.
“This budget is balanced with no one-time revenues for the general fund operating budget and very reasonable revenue estimates on local receipts,” said Viscay.
The city is slated to receive about $117.5 million in state aid, with the majority of that, just over $102 million, going toward the education budget.
There are also two enterprise funds, for water and sewer as well as solid waste, that total just over $35 million for FY25, Viscay said.
The education budget is the largest slice of the overall FY25 spending, coming in at $126,284,616 for the Revere public schools. In addition, the regional vocational school district budget in Revere is $3.28 million.
The proposed public safety budget, which includes the police, fire, 911, and parking departments, has a budget of $32.8 million.
Viscay said this includes two new police officers and two new firefighters.
In addition, Viscay said the city is hoping to get grant money to hire five new firefighters who will help staff the new Point of Pines fire stations, which is scheduled to open in the fall.
Viscay added that the parking department budget is larger this year, since that department absorbed the city’s 40 crossing guards from the school budget.
The general government budget, which includes executive and financial divisions of the city, is proposed at $10.7 million. That budget includes $1 million reserved in the mayor’s budget for collective bargaining purposes, and reorganized human resources and 311 constituent services departments.
The proposed public works budget is $4.8 million, the health and human services department comes in at $2.4 million, and the culture and recreation budget is $2.1 million.
The debt service costs for FY25 on the general fund side of the ledger is $9.2 million, and includes funding for projects such as the Point of Pines fire station and the new public works building.
Looking ahead, Viscay noted that the debt service for the new Revere High School will be the primary focus of future debt service expenses in the city.
