BY MICHELLE KIM
New Boston homeowners can expect a lower property tax bill this year due to a one-time bump in school funds, but could have saved more if the town portion hadn’t doubled.
The 2007 overall property tax rate has been set at $14.02 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a decrease of 8.4 percent from last year’s rate of $15.30. The owner of a $300,000 property would pay $4,206, or $384 less than last year.
The local school portion of the tax, which dropped 34.1 percent from $10.32 last year to $6.80 this year, accounted for the lower overall rate.
New Boston had fewer special education needs than expected and fewer middle school and high school enrollments, requiring fewer tuition charges, than anticipated said Dr. Darrell Lockwood, superintendent of SAU 19.
In addition, the district received a larger than expected adequacy education grant of over $2 million, which was about $500,000 more than the previous year.
“I’m hoping the adequacy education grant will continue, but the state has been known to change that rate year to year,” said Lockwood.
He explained that this year’s combination of lower expenses and greater revenue was a unique occurance and that the school portion of the tax rate would probably go back to previous levels.
The town portion of the tax rate showed the most dramatic increase, more than doubling from $2.05 last year to $4.27 this year.
This is in large part because of the town’s efforts to reduce the impact of tax fluctuations, according to Town Administrator Burton Reynolds.
By reducing the overall drop in taxes this year, next year’s anticipated tax increase will seem less sharp, according to Reynolds.
Without this offsetting effort, the town portion would have risen only about 50 cents, Burton estimates.
Reynolds said people like consistency and knowing what to expect when it comes to taxes.
The state school portion of the tax rate remained essentially flat at $2.01, or 2 cents more than last year’s rate. The county portion increased 4.4 percent from 90 cents last year to 94 cents this year.