Taxpayers need the numbers to weigh in on pact with colleges

The problem is that the colleges are crowding out and taking over the taxpaying properties that support the city operations.

The City of Providence and four colleges — Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence College and Johnson & Wales University — are once again hammering out agreements whereby the city can extract some support from the colleges for the cost of running the city. Unlike the taxpayers of the city, the nonprofit colleges pay no property tax. It’s the law.

It’s a legacy law that began when schools, hospitals and churches were modest yet important institutions of the city landscape. And they continue in this important mission.

But the colleges no longer just serve Providence and are no longer modest. They are outsized engines of growth and stability. The problem is that the robust engines of growth are crowding out and taking over the taxpaying properties that support the city operations.

What to do? Here’s a start:

Add an appendix to the two draft agreements the city is now negotiating with the colleges. In the City of Providence Comprehensive Plan, the appendix is an important part. It contains the basic data that drive the direction of the Comprehensive Plan. An appendix to the Memorandum of Understanding between Providence and Brown, RISD, PC and JWU and an appendix to the Memorandum of Agreement between the city and Brown would provide the data that could drive the agreements.

Right now the draft is structured as an efficient document that lays out terms with which both the mayor’s office and the colleges appear to agree.

But do these agreements work for the taxpayers? It’s hard to tell because so much information is missing. More than either of the signing parties, it is the taxpayers who make the sacrifices in order for these agreements to work; sacrifices that show up in their tax assessments and tax bills. It is only reasonable that they have the information they need to direct their representatives on the City Council, who must approve the mayor’s agreements.

This is where appendices to the agreements can help. In the City Comprehensive Plan, the first heading under the Appendix is titled “Existing Conditions.” What follows are all manner of demographic figures, economic figures, land use figures and on and on.

How about an “Existing Conditions” section to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)?

For example, what is the assessed land and property and tangible property values of the colleges? If these properties were in a taxable class, what would they bring? What would they add to the city tax revenue?

And how about addressing the monetary inflation over the 20 years of the agreement? The last 20 years of inflation reduced the purchasing power of one dollar to 57 cents. Shouldn’t an inflation factor be introduced? The agreements address “mutual benefit” to the city and colleges. Isn’t it a mutual benefit to explain and work to resolve the city’s pension liability as an “Existing Condition”? Doesn’t the taxpayer need to have this knowledge to counsel their council people in regard to the MOU and MOA?

One suggestion Mayor Brett Smiley had was to consider college payroll taxes as a source of city revenue. The idea went nowhere with the larger state political forces, but an appendix might be a proper place to vet such a proposal.

Adding helpful-to-the-taxpayer appendices to the MOA and MOU might not change the language of the agreements, but it would go a long way toward getting buy-in from the taxpayers.

Joe Cornwall is an architect and property manager in Providence’s Ward 12, where he ran for City Council in 2022.