[RP TownTalk] Improvements will save money in the long term

[Alan Thompson and Sarah Wayland]

The overwhelming number of people reading this list are individual  
homeowners who have lived here for more than a year.  Under this  
DRAFT budget they will see an 18% increase in the TOWN portion of  
their tax bill.

For those same people, for the "hypothetical case" without the  
infrastructure improvements, they would have a 2.5% lower tax RATE,  
but a 7.25% higher tax BILL, than last year (because of the increase  
in assessed property value.)

Rob's calculation is for people who own commercial property  
(businesses and rental property), and for the VERY FEW homeowners who  
moved here recently.

Of course, for the "hypothetical case" without the infrastructure  
improvements, we would likely have future budgets with similar taxes,  
but less infrastructure improvement, because we would be doing it  
piecemeal.

	Alan

On May 21, 2007, at 2:01 AM, Rob Oppenheim wrote:

> On Sun, 20 May 2007 22:27:33 -0400, Alan Thompson and Sarah Wayland  
> wrote:
> >But first, let's set the record straight: ... the tax hike is not  
> 27%, at least not for most people.
>
> The proposed tax rate generates 27% more revenue than last year.
> I see no way to call that anything other than a 27% tax hike.
>
> Individual tax bills will vary, if you are one of the lucky ones,
> you pay only 18% more.
>
> Ouch. An 18% hike in a single year is a huge increase.
>
> Even if you remove the part of the increase that is for  
> "infrastructure
> improvements", there is still a 15% increase in taxes. **
>
> The public budget hearing is this evening - Monday night, May 21,
> 7:30 pm, Town Hall.
>
> Rob Oppenheim
>
> ** In this hypothetical case the rate goes down 2.5% but the average
> tax bill still goes up a whopping 15% because assessments went up
> so much.
>

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