Don't forget to VOTE - MONDAY (not Tuesday) at Town Hall

Town Budget comes before the voters on Monday
By Will Collette

The new rate is expected to be $9.87

On Monday, June 2, Charlestown's registered voters get their chance to vote on the town's budget for the upcoming fiscal year that starts on July 1.

Well, you get to vote on just under half of the budget - $12.1 million - because voters have already approved the Chariho School District budget of $14 million and change. 54% of your tax bill pays for Chariho. Click here for more detail on this budget. Click here to read the whole budget for yourself.

This budget calls for the sixth consecutive tax increase - each and every year since the Charlestown Citizens Alliance took control of all the levers of power in town in 2008.


This year, the tax rate will climb by 41 cents per one thousand dollars of home value. That's a rate increase of 4.33%. Part of that hike in the tax rate is driven by a drop in total taxable real estate value in Charlestown, but not all of it.

In fact, the budget approved by the CCA-Party controlled Town Council calls for a 1.8% in overall tax collections, meaning an added $478,078 coming out of taxpayers' pockets.

When the Town Council took its final look at the budget and the two additional "warrant" items that were also proposed for the June 2 ballot, the Town Council decided to kill the two additional items.

One was the very controversial idea to sell one of the few town-owned beach paths because the neighbors of the path, mostly non-resident summer home owners, didn't like the people that were using it.

At first the CCA Party majority (Boss Tom Gentz, Dan Slattery and George Slattery) approved this idea, but after hearing testimony during the May 5 budget hearing that selling that beach access was a very bad idea, the three CCA boys flipped and the ballot question was killed.

The second ballot question was to ask voters for authorization to spend $260,000 to rebuild the tennis courts at Ninigret Park. Even though there really wasn't any serious opposition to the idea of asking for voters to make this decision, the CCA boys decided at the last minute that they didn't like this idea either, and killed it.