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Preparing For the Bond Payments

FY28–FY29 Levy Planner

In FY2029, the Town will need to start covering the new Police Station bond payment on its own — $777,075 a year — instead of pulling it from reserves. On top of that, the budget has grown by about $884,326 a year on average over the last four years just from normal costs. So: how much do we need to raise the levy over the next two years so the town isn't caught short? Play with the sliders below.

FY2028 growth %
FY2028 levy
FY2029 growth %
FY2029 levy

4% cap check reflects Rhode Island's statutory maximum annual levy increase (R.I. Gen. Laws §44-5-2). Whether this specific debt service qualifies for one of the statute's exemptions hasn't been confirmed — check with the finance director before treating "over 4%" as a hard legal violation. Growth rates here are the actual total dollar levy increase year over year, not the tax rate.

North Smithfield Spending Priorities Over Time (FY2022–FY2027)

Where the priorities have shifted

North Smithfield general fund, FY2022 to FY2027 — six adopted budgets, department by department

Total budget growth
+21.5%
FY22 → FY27, 4.0%/yr avg
Biggest share gainer
Fire +2.2pp
6.9% → 9.1% of budget
Biggest share loser
Debt −2.8pp
8.8% → 6.0% of budget
Schools' share of budget
−2.3pp
58.6% → 56.3%, despite $ growth every year

Share of the budget, by department

100% stacked — click a department below to highlight it; the rest dim but stay visible for context.

Who gained ground, who lost it

Change in each department's share of the total budget, FY2022 → FY2027, in percentage points. This is the number that actually answers "is spending on X up or down relative to everything else" — a department can grow in dollars every year and still lose ground here, which is exactly what happened to Schools.

Growth relative to the total budget

Each department indexed to 100 at FY2022, alongside the total budget's own growth (bold dashed line). Above the dashed line = growing faster than the budget as a whole (gaining share). Below it = growing slower (losing share), even while still growing in raw dollars.

What the six-year trend shows

Fire gained more ground than any other department. NSFD spending grew from $3.27M to $5.22M (+59.5%), and — more to the point — its share of the total budget climbed from 6.9% to 9.1%, a real +2.2 percentage-point gain. That's two rounds of new firefighter positions (Phase 4 hiring, plus a new floater added in FY2027) growing faster than the town's overall spending, not just riding along with inflation.
Debt service lost the most ground of anything — down 2.8 percentage points of the budget (8.8% → 6.0%), and the only major line that's also down in raw dollars (−17.4%), even after absorbing the new police station bond in FY2027. That's the retiring school bonds outrunning new borrowing, as described in the police-bond section of the main budget tool.
Schools remain the largest single line by far (roughly 57 cents of every budget dollar), but their dollar growth (+16.8% over six years) trails the total budget's own growth (+21.5%) — meaning schools have quietly taken a smaller slice of the pie even while nominal school spending rose every year. Parks & Rec (including the Library) more than doubled, though from a small base and driven heavily by one-time capital items (Pacheco Park, Scouter's Hall) rather than steady operating growth — worth treating as noisier than the other lines.

The numbers

Sources and methodology

Source documents: Town of North Smithfield Approved General Fund Budgets for FY2025 (dated 6/30/2024), FY2026 (dated 6/30/2025), and FY2027 (adopted 2026) — each includes several years of prior "Adopted Budget" figures as comparison columns, cross-checked against each other for consistency where years overlap.
Basis: Every year is the originally Adopted budget for that fiscal year, not year-end actuals — this keeps the comparison apples-to-apples across years (actual spending fluctuates with weather, overtime, and grant timing in ways the adopted budget doesn't).
Category groupings (consistent across all six years): Schools = Total School appropriation. Police = NSPD + Dispatch + Animal Control. Fire = NSFD. Roads = Highway + DPW. Debt = Total Debt Service. Govt = Town Council, Probate Court, Legal, Municipal Court, Administration, Town Clerk, Planning, Board of Canvassers, Finance, Tax Assessor, IT, Juvenile Hearing Board. Parks = Parks & Rec + NS Library. Other = remainder (General Government department, Building & Zoning, EMA, small boards/commissions).
Limitations: (1) Department reorganizations over six years (e.g., a Tax Assessor position shifting to Finance in FY2027) can shift a few thousand dollars between category lines without reflecting a real spending change. (2) Capital transfers are included within department totals for most years, which can make single-year swings look larger than the underlying operating trend — Parks & Rec in particular is capital-driven and noisy. (3) FY2027 figures are the adopted budget; all other years reflect what was actually approved at adoption, which occasionally differs slightly from later-amended totals.
North Smithfield Spending Priorities Over Time (FY2022–FY2027)

Where the priorities have shifted

North Smithfield general fund, FY2022 to FY2027 — six adopted budgets, department by department

Total budget growth
+21.5%
FY22 → FY27, 4.0%/yr avg
Biggest share gainer
Fire +2.2pp
6.9% → 9.1% of budget
Biggest share loser
Debt −2.8pp
8.8% → 6.0% of budget
Schools' share of budget
−2.3pp
58.6% → 56.3%, despite $ growth every year

Share of the budget, by department

100% stacked — click a department below to highlight it; the rest dim but stay visible for context.

Who gained ground, who lost it

Change in each department's share of the total budget, FY2022 → FY2027, in percentage points. A department can grow in dollars every year and yet receive less of the overall pie.

Growth relative to the total budget

Each department indexed to 100 at FY2022, alongside the total budget's own growth (bold dashed line). Above the dashed line = growing faster than the budget as a whole (gaining share). Below it = growing slower (losing share), even while still growing in raw dollars.

What the six-year trend shows

Fire gained more ground than any other department. NSFD spending grew from $3.27M to $5.22M (+59.5%), and — more to the point — its share of the total budget climbed from 6.9% to 9.1%, a real +2.2 percentage-point gain. That's two rounds of new firefighter positions (Phase 4 hiring, plus a new floater added in FY2027) growing faster than the town's overall spending, not just riding along with inflation.
Debt service lost the most ground of anything — down 2.8 percentage points of the budget (8.8% → 6.0%), and the only major line that's also down in raw dollars (−17.4%), even after absorbing the new police station bond in FY2027. That's the retiring school bonds outrunning new borrowing, as described in the police-bond section of the main budget tool.
Schools remain the largest single line by far (roughly 57 cents of every budget dollar), but their dollar growth (+16.8% over six years) trails the total budget's own growth (+21.5%) — meaning schools have quietly taken a smaller slice of the pie even while nominal school spending rose every year. Parks & Rec (including the Library) more than doubled, though from a small base and driven heavily by one-time capital items (Pacheco Park, Scouter's Hall) rather than steady operating growth — worth treating as noisier than the other lines.

The numbers

Sources and methodology

Source documents: Town of North Smithfield Approved General Fund Budgets for FY2025 (dated 6/30/2024), FY2026 (dated 6/30/2025), and FY2027 (adopted 2026) — each includes several years of prior "Adopted Budget" figures as comparison columns, cross-checked against each other for consistency where years overlap.
Basis: Every year is the originally Adopted budget for that fiscal year, not year-end actuals — this keeps the comparison apples-to-apples across years (actual spending fluctuates with weather, overtime, and grant timing in ways the adopted budget doesn't).
Category groupings (consistent across all six years): Schools = Total School appropriation. Police = NSPD + Dispatch + Animal Control. Fire = NSFD. Roads = Highway + DPW. Debt = Total Debt Service. Govt = Town Council, Probate Court, Legal, Municipal Court, Administration, Town Clerk, Planning, Board of Canvassers, Finance, Tax Assessor, IT, Juvenile Hearing Board. Parks = Parks & Rec + NS Library. Other = remainder (General Government department, Building & Zoning, EMA, small boards/commissions).
Limitations: (1) Department reorganizations over six years (e.g., a Tax Assessor position shifting to Finance in FY2027) can shift a few thousand dollars between category lines without reflecting a real spending change. (2) Capital transfers are included within department totals for most years, which can make single-year swings look larger than the underlying operating trend — Parks & Rec in particular is capital-driven and noisy. (3) FY2027 figures are the adopted budget; all other years reflect what was actually approved at adoption, which occasionally differs slightly from later-amended totals.