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Municipal leaders back higher local-option lodging, meals and vehicle excise surcharges to shore up budgets
Summary
Multiple mayors and town managers urged the legislature to allow higher local‑option taxes — including a 1% increase in lodging tax, raising the meals‑tax ceiling to 1.0%, and an optional 5% vehicle‑excise surcharge — arguing the revenue would help avoid layoffs, fund infrastructure and stabilize budgets for towns dependent on tourism.
Municipal officials told the joint committee the Municipal Empowerment Act’s proposed local‑option revenue tools would provide timely relief in communities struggling with constrained property‑tax capacity and rising costs.
Plymouth account manager Derek Brindisi said a 1 percentage‑point increase in the local lodging tax would generate an estimated $500,000 annually in his city, and that a 0.25 percentage‑point raise in the meals tax ceiling (from 0.75% to 1.0%) would yield roughly $600,000 a year under local policy that dedicates meals tax revenues to facility stabilization. Franklin’s town administrator and other witnesses said modest increases could have spared layoffs and preserved services after narrow override defeats.
Multiple municipal leaders framed these as optional, local choices: lodging and meals taxes are paid largely by visitors, they argued, and a motor‑vehicle excise surcharge could be dedicated to road maintenance funds. Municipal witnesses urged the committee to advance those local‑option changes as near‑term tools that would give councils and town meetings additional flexibility to maintain essential services.
Committee members noted revenue provisions are politically sensitive, and several officials cautioned that any enacted options would still require local legislative or voter approval before being used in a given city or town.
