The Salisbury City Council last night unanimously approved a $53 million budget that will raise property taxes for the first time in years.
The rate will go from $8.19 to $8.84 per $1000 of assessed property value.
The increase represents the revenue problem faced by Salisbury in the face of an 8 percent drop in the town’s property tax base due to the Great Recession.
There is a 2 percent pay raise for city employees and as well as money to maintain the pay increases for the police department.
In the end the Council sliced around $170-thousand from Mayor Jim Ireton’s spending plan.
Among those cuts was $13,600 in health insurance for council member all of which the Salisbury Daily Times reports would have been spent had Debbie Campbell been re-elected to the council.
Another $225-thosuand was saved when grant funding was used for fire department radios instead of taxpayer money.