The Select Board will have a public hearing and set the tax rate on Monday at 6:30Pm in Room 304 of Town Hall. I have a post about how the tax levy, tax rate and tax classification work at this link Residential and commercial valuations are down 5 or 6% this year. Does that mean the residents and businesses will pay lower taxes? No, it doesn't. The short answer as to why is that the town takes the the required tax levy and uses that to come up with the tax rate. It's all in the previous link.
Mr. Frank Gracie, who chaired a Tax Classification Committee, was kind enough to send me an explanation of why that is needed and you can find his explanation at this link.
There has been some discussion ...
... in comments of other posts about the tax rate and also about required school spending.
If you want to find out how the schools are funded in Dartmouth, try the links here and here wherein Mr. Lynam of the Finance Committee gives a good explanation.
School funding is pretty complicated and it is easy to find statistics which seem to support one position or the other. I find that a thorough understanding of the process and the derivation of the statistics is needed. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has a lot of information at their website here.
While Dartmouth funds the school budget at required net school spending in the annual budget that is not the only money that the schools receive from the town tax levy. For instance, the recent decision by the town to remove school bus fees provided an added $91,000 from the town above the school required budget. Transportation is a town charge, not a school charge, in the state reckoning and is not included in required school spending. The activity fee reduction added some more town money to the school budget too. I don't have that number handy.
Additionally, Town Meeting has funded many hundreds of thousands of dollars for textbooks and technology and other capital needs over the last few years. All that spending is over and above required net school spending but not counted by the state in their calculation of what the town has spent for education.
Given these examples, I think that the contention that Dartmouth only provides required net spending is demonstrably false.
What do you think about the tax rate, tax classification and school spending? Tell us in comments.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Select Board to set tax rate on Monday
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6 comments:
How about the Select Board remembering ALL Dartmouth residents and keeping the split tax?
ALL of us can use a break here.
Hope Ms. Stone, Mr. Watson, and Mrs. Dias agree. It should be interesting to hear this discussion. The vote will be telling in demonstrating just how much the Board's members think of the Dartmouth residents. We are a COMMUNITY here, folks. Hope that is not forgotten as they vote what is "in the best interest of the Town."
I guess we know what you think is the "best interest" of the town. Who says you know?
If "the best interest of the town" was Ms. Stone's $8,000,000+ plus override, then I think the majority of residents would have voted to accept it. I would say, by that, at least, that the majority of us would like to see some money saved from OUR (the WHOLE community, not just a certain segment(s) of it) pockets.
And, if we're not careful, we may find ourselves with two new Board members who think along the lines of Ms. Stone: school - - OVERRIDE -- first, community later. Oh, of course, again, not NOW, by any means; the time just isn't right. But soon.
And, your "best interest" for the town is??
Barry will noever allow an override, thank God, Michaud will never allow funding for schools and neither will trimble...Thank God
Point of clarification. Mr. Walker's group DID support at least a couple of the override questions last year.
which one?
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