Atlantic City Administrator Doug Harris says the various, proposed Capital Improvement Projects the City hopes to have completed this year, will mean an increase in the tax rate, by as much as 35-cents per thousand dollars valuation, or about 2%. Most of the projects will be paid for through the issuance of bonds, while others will come out of the Local Option Sales Tax.

He says the City is looking at a $3.9-million bond issue. It was hoped the bonds could be paid for with “modest increases in the tax rate,” but the final figures aren’t yet known. It could add 12-cents to the tax rate, or as much as a 35-cent tax rate increase. The issuance of bonds, according to Harris, would account for about one-third of that increase.

Harris said the City needs to catch-up on backlogs to the repair of the streets, but he says they understand “These are difficult times, and people can’t afford to catch everything up.”  He says the City will do the most modest repairs possible, without putting undue pressure on the tax rate, yet keep it well within or below what it was in 2005.