I received my school tax bill for the upcoming year earlier this week. I was dismayed to see that the year to year increase in my actual tax was slightly over 8 percent and that the library tax had gone up a whopping 12.6 percent (grist for another rant).
Upon closer inspection I noticed that) although the “full value” of my home had remained the same (NB: please send me a check and I’ll call the movers ASAP), ii) that my “total assessment” had remained the same, and iii) that the school district’s estimated state aid had actually increased, the assessed value throughout the school district had decreased by $346,608 necessitating an 8 percent rate rise in the tax rate. Applying the same uniform percentage of value (.25 perent) used in the case of my home to the above-mentioned district wide decrease in assessed value I concluded that over $138.6 million in “value” had vanished from the district. Hmmm!
What do I make of this? 1) My neighbors have been grieving their taxes and slipping me the bill? or 2) There are a lot of tax cert lawyers making a lot of money? or 3) As the bulk of the district’s taxes are levied on single family homes my assessed value should have gone down too? or 4) I’m entirely missing something.
I am in need of illumination on this. Let’s not bash the teachers – just the math please.
