Incomplete headline, or foot loose and fancy free?
This past week's Steamer (subscription required) has the headline of “New assessments to increase island tax burden” as well as an editorial of “Bending reval rules”. Both spoke to the issue that the island property assessments are probably going to skyrocket to keep within the State regulations.
In the editorial, Alec tries to propose the the “foot loose” part by suggesting an end around the whole process by simply doing a what-if of just raising all assessments by 17%, and then shoots it down by noting the problems. I smiled as I read it, trying to figure out if he was just thinking out loud, or trying to skewer-in-advance those that might propose the same thing.
What both the headline and the editorial failed to mention were the other two components of what drives the tax burden – the overall tax rates (how much we pay per $1,000 of assessed value) and the spending of the town. It is a three legged stool that has to be balanced to keep your “sit-down” on a level keel.
If you keep spending level, you can lower the rate even as assessments go up - town revenues (via the taxes we pay) will remain the same. However, if spending goes up, the age old run-around used by politicos can be used - “hey, we kept the rates the same!” by just letting the assessments go up and keeping the additional revenues.
That is what taxpayers should be eyeballing all the time, the tax rates, as there is little we can do about the assesments due to State regs and marketplace forces. Be sure to keep that in mind, and remind your elected officials that you are doing just that.
Of course, since this topic was announced at the "summer town meeting", one other way of minimizing the tax burden of the island properties, as reported by the Daily Sun on 8/17), John Goodhue wants Gilford to exempt all of the island properties from the local and State part of the education part of the bill.
Umm, isn't this the same guy that sued when he didn't like the idea of using chemicals (costing the town about $15K) to kill the milfoil in his cove (Smith Cove) and instead wants a skin diver firm to pull the milfoil by hand (something that the State does not recommend nor will it chip in money for) upwards of $24-30K to hand pull the milfoil, and then continue removing milfoil the same way every year at a recurring cost of $4-5K / year?
Yes, I understand that he thought that the marinas and the residents of the cove might pitch in. But in reading the Steamer article (8/2/06, Removing milfoil from Smith Cove remains hot topic - Subscription Required), he expects that the town would pick up the left over expense).
And he wanted the town to build a new dock down at Glendale just for the island residents.
A little hypocritical if you ask me (you don't want to pay the taxes, but have all of us pay to keep a limited use cove plant free?)...
