I must admit that my first reaction to the creation of a new revenue board for New London was that it sounded like a euphemism for imposing new taxes and fees.

After all, what revenue can the city count on except taxes and fees, other than state aid, which of course is in a death spiral.

But I came away from the first meeting of the newly christened Municipal Revenue Board last week encouraged that they may be on to some good ideas.

The board is the creation of Mayor Michael Passero, who has assembled some appointees who seem to either have money or are used to counting or managing it. They seemed to warm to the idea of increasing city revenue, right out of the gate.

Some of the ideas kicked around in the inaugural session do seem like different forms of taxation, but with a new spin — perhaps one that ultimately may be a more fair way to charge for city services.

The mayor explained at the outset, for instance, that the city is looking for ways to pay for new stormwater treatment regulations, which are essentially a new unfunded mandate.

New expenses include things like frequent street washings, which the city does not have in its budget.

By creating a stormwater district with a fee structure, he suggested, the city can charge not only taxpayers for these new services, but everyone who benefits from them, like the nonprofits that are exempt from property taxes. It would be like the utility bills they pay.

This same principle may apply to other city services, the mayor said, changes that might require new state legislation.

Putting police and fire services, for instance, under a separate fee or tax structure than the city's mill rate, for instance, might make it possible to charge institutions that are now exempt from property taxes.

I have long thought big institutions like Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and the two private colleges should be more responsible for the considerable city services they use.

This would be a simple way to make that happen.

The presence of so many tax-exempt nonprofits in the city, which serves as a social services hub for the region, has long been the curse on the city's budget.

Another idea Passero floated to his new board is the way the city collects for trash collection and trash management. A pay-per-bag system, like the one now used in Stonington, is under consideration.

Passero also asked the board to look at costs of the trash transfer station, which, when it was built, was supposed to generate revenue from fees. Instead, it is subsidized.

The mayor gave his new board a wide charge to go through the budget and city facilities and look at new ways of generating revenue. He promised to put department heads and finance officials at the board's disposal.

The board's first meeting attracted a few budget gadflies who seemed to worry, like I did, that revenue enhancement was another way of raising taxes.

The mayor opened the meeting by suggesting that the real revenue enhancers will be new development, and while some of that is in the pipeline, it is a ways away from having an impact on the budget, especially development in the enterprise zone that would give some early years of tax abatements.

The number of signatures on a petition demanding cuts or a referendum on the current budgeted tax increase of more than 9 percent is a sign that residents are demanding something change.

If not cuts, it will have to be new revenue, and soon.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com