The Commissioner of Revenue provided his department’s annual report last night.  Overall, the price of local housing seems to have stabilized.  That’s good news.  Single family prices are essentially flat, town house has gone up about 4% and condo’s have gone down 5%.  Taken as a whole, pricing is up 3.1%.  Residential housing comprises 57% of the real estate tax base.  Foreclosures are down 60%. 

Business license revenue is down an average of 15%.  Revenue from the “hotel tax” is down 6%.  Hell, even the cigarette tax is down 5%.

Tucked in there is another interesting number: the average real estate bill (not the rate or assesment) is now the same as it was in 2006.  3 of the 4 years in between then and now have had non-zero increases in CPI so revenues to the City are decreasing but our costs (except labor) are generally increasing.

Taken as a whole, this is somewhat encouraging.  If we don’t get creamed too badly by the GA, we should be able to arrive at a budget in a reasonable fashion.  That, however, is not a given.  If the Governor and his allies are succesful in repealing the M&T tax (looks like HB 1636) and/or the BPOL tax (several) there will be a historic shift in tax burden to property owners – residential and commercial.  We’ll need to watch our local representatives to see how they vote.

UPDATE:  Here’s a link to the “Budget in Brief” that the manager puts out.  Tells you where your tax money goes at a high level.