| August 12, 2012 | Contact | Calendar | The Mix | Archives |
Wing, our 11 year old lab/border collie dog, was put down this week. Great companion, swimmer, soccer player, door bell and alarm clock, she knew what to do with a dock. There are lots of pictures of her and her sister Scout in the archives.
This week's townie lesson for me is all about the mill rate. I want to be able to tell people at town meeting how much impact the cost of the new town office will have on their taxes. Here is how that works. The mill rate is currently 11.1. That means that if your property is assessed at $100K, the property tax on it this year will be $100K times 11.1 divided by 1000 = $1110. A mil is a thousandth of a dollar. The mill rate is calculated by dividing the total town expenses for the year (after state aid and other revenue is applied) by the total assessed property value for the town. So the numerator is expenses and the denominator is total real estate assessed value. The assessors are supposed to make a change to the mill rate this week. I guess that means they are changing the denominator. When the town office committee goes to town meeting with a proposal to borrow something like $200K we will be adding to the numerator. The amount we will add will be the total of all payments on the loan for the year. With that proposed change to the mill rate, we will be able to tell people exactly how much their taxes will go up because of the new town office. If it is a tiny increase, we will get approval. Of course, if you're Mike French hauling trees out of the woods, the mill rate is a whole different animal. At the same town meeting there will be two other articles on the warrant. One will be to refinance the loan on the fire station. The other will be to put the historic town office up for sale. Both of these save the town money and that will help our proposal. Incidentally, the most likely person to bid on the old town office is Melissa. That building does not have a well or a place to dig one. Its water comes from the basement of the building next door which Melissa and I own. That's not that unusual an arrangement in town. The ambulance service gets its water from the laundromat next door. Very interconnected it all is. Off to the movie of the week, Safety Not Guaranteed; romantic comedy with time travel, one of my favorite combos. |