Which of course means that
your property taxes will go up....by about 4%.
It's the same as the last year's budget (not as much of an increase though). The tax levy for 2009 increased 6.3% over the levy from 2008. (2009 levy was 16,277,007 and 2008 levy was 15,306,256 - a $970,751 increase in the levy.)
This year the levy is "tentatively" increasing by $641,322.
Also increasing is the library budget - by $158,317.
$1,857,932 for 2010 vs $1,699,615 for 2009. Out of that $158,317 increase to the Library Budget, $131,927 is for increases in salary and fringe benefits for the staff. So, out of that 10% increase to the library budget, 8.3% of it is going towards salaries and benefits.
I want to know why the valuation for this budget is over 10 million less than the valuation for last year's budget.
2009 valuation is 2,528,465,673 and the 2008 was 2,538,521,466 a difference of $10,055,793. (Remember, the valuation is the taxable assessed value of taxable
real property in the town.)
I think a big part of the $10 million loss in the valuation is that a lot of people challenged their reassessments. GAR, on average, raised the assessment on properties by 20% and many people challenged that number - hard to believe the valuation could fluctuate by 10 million from one year to the next.
Here are some pages from the Budget, it's over a 100 pages so I'm not putting them all on here. You can read all of it at this link.
In the above letter, on the first page, the Supervisor says that the increase in the tax levy and tax rate is due to a "decrease in revenue and increased mandatory costs such as health care, pensions, and contractual obligations."
Actually, there was an increase in revenue last year and this year. Raising the tax levy means an increase in revenue. (Unless the "decrease in revenue" is that $500,000 payment Congel hasn't made yet......)
