Mayor Scott Avedisian’s persistence finally may be paying off.
Since he took office nearly six years ago, the Warwick mayor has been trying to get state dollars to reimburse the city for revenue lost due to T.F. Green Airport’s tax-exempt status. Now, in his proposed budget for fiscal 2007, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri has included, for the first time ever, a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) allocation to make up for Green.
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The PILOT program reimburses host communities for 27 percent of the taxes which would be collected if a property were taxable. According to the Warwick tax assessor, the land and buildings at T.F. Green are valued at $367.7 million. The city’s property tax rate is $23.18 per $1,000 of assessed value, for a tax liability of $8.52 million. Warwick would get 27 percent or $2.3 million in PILOT dollars.
However, facing a budget deficit of nearly $300 million, Carcieri allocated $1.15 million in the 2007 budget, with the total amount to be paid in 2008.
PILOT dollars are normally provided for hosting nonprofit institutions such as colleges and hospitals. This year, Warwick got about $817,000 in PILOT funds for hosting, among others, the Community College of Rhode Island, Kent Hospital and New England Institute of Technology.
To allow for payments for T.F. Green, Carcieri is proposing to designate airports serving more than 1 million passengers a year as eligible for PILOT funding.
Not all think it’s a good idea.
Kate Brewster, executive director of The Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College, said it’s wrong to add to state spending while proposing cuts, as Carcieri has, that would affect low and moderate-income people.
Then there’s the question of whether T.F. Green costs Warwick money, or brings it in. The most recent economic impact study conducted for the airport, in April 2003, credited it with $1.3 billion in economic activity including about $122.8 million in Warwick. The airport also employs more than 1,000 Warwick residents.
