Final property tax bills mailed

By NATHAN LAMB | Milton Independent Staff Writer
miltonreporter@yahoo.com

Final tax bills for FY08 were mailed on Monday, and they figure to be significantly higher than the previous version mailed in August, according to Town Clerk John Cushing.

“I don’t know what the average is, but I’m going to guess that it’s $300 to $800 per residential unit,” he said.

The increase is due to the $21,409,326 school budget which was approved on Aug. 14, explained Cushing. No budget was in place when the first bill was sent on Aug. 13, so the state’s baseline per-pupil spending figures were used for calculations, said Cushing.

As a result, the first bill had a homestead rate of .785. Since the Milton district budget is higher than the baseline, it triggered the calculations that resulted in the rate jumping to 1.0407.

Milton residents typically get one tax bill per year, but town charter requires that a bill be sent 30 days prior to the suggested September payment. As a result, the second bill was required to show what taxpayers owed after the budget was set.

Though school tax calculations are complex, Cushing cited two major factors behind the new number.

The first is the actual per pupil spending approved by the district. The other is the state’s sliding scale that puts a higher rate on districts that spend more. The concept, titled “the more you spend, the more you pay” was outlined in a flier that accompanied tax bills, as per order of the state Department of Taxes.

In this case, the first tax bill assumed the state’s base rate of per pupil spending, which is $7,736. The Aug. 14 budget pushed that number to $10,256, which raised Milton’s property rate from 87 cents and $1.1534.

From there, property rates are divided by the town’s common level of appraisal. Milton properties are appraised at 110.83 percent of fair market value due to shifts in the real estate market and, when calculated against the property rate, the end result is a homestead tax rate of $1.0407, said Cushing.

A table within the DOT flyer showed that Milton’s per pupil spending is 33 percent higher than the state baseline However, Milton was still lower than the state average of $11,095, which is 43 percent above the base.

Conversely, the non-residential tax rate is not tied to spending and was not affected by the school budget, said the DOT flyer. That rate is 1.2271 in Milton, said Cushing.

While the new bills were just sent, Cushing said they’ve already yielded several complaints. In some cases, the issue is simply dissatisfaction at a higher bill, though sometimes people disagreed with the property assessment that’s calculated against the tax rate to determine the bill.

Such calls are welcome, said Cushing, who advised people to bring potential issues with the tax bills forward sooner instead of later.

“If people have got issues or questions, we want them to call us,” he said. “We want people to call us now, instead of April.”

Final tax bill payments are due on May 15.