External Link: https://tax.vermont.gov/sites/tax/files/documents/2023 Education Tax Rate Letter.pdf
The looming school tax mess is a statewide problem, not a local one. Vermont Tax Commissioner Craig Bolo's annual letter to legislators anticipates massive increases in school spending throughout Vermont – along with unsustainable increases in property taxes.
This analysis is specific to Williston, where the CLA does more damage than it does in Milton. An analysis of Milton's taxes will be available shortly.
Williston Property Tax Increase: the Numbers
Bruce Roy
On Feb 9th in FPF, Ann O'Day did a solid analysis of how Williston property taxes may increase. In lieu of no "official" total position, I did the same, adding analysis on the education tax component and the "unforeseen impact" of Act 127.
Warning: it's complicated!
The town budget has been warned for vote. As Ted Kenney explained in a recent post, the town piece adds tax of $40 per $100k of assessed home value, from $336 to $376 per year. An increase of 12%
The District School budget is the bigger component. It has also been set and warned for vote on March 5th. The proposed budget increases from $96.1M to $105.8M, $9.7M more, about 10%. Applying the Current Level of Appraisal (CLA) for Williston (69%), this will generate an estimated tax increase of $304 per $100k of assessment per year. Taxes go from $1674 per $100k to $1978, just over 18% increase for the school component. (Assuming the Act 127 5% pre CLA tax cap remains).
Summary for Williston taxpayers:
Town tax: $336 to $376 per $100k.
School tax: $1674 to $1978 per $100k.
Overall: Residential Property tax goes from $2010 to $2350 per $100k assessment, 17% increase from last year.
Bottom line: a $300,000 home's property tax will go from $6,030 to $7,050/year.
Now, if the 5% local non-CLA tax "cap" that was put in place by Act 127 is eliminated by emergency legislation being proposed now, then by my estimate the school CLA applied tax increases from last year's $1674 to now $2088 per $100k assessment. Bottom line muni/school total property tax goes to $2460 per $100k combined total tax rate (22% increase from last year's $2010).
This amounts to $7380/year for a $300k home, up from last year's $6030.
This may happen even without rescinding the 5% cap. Without a different/additional source of revenue, Vermont still has to find the money for the difference between the tax cap rate and actual spending in the proposed budgets.
What an incredibly complicated mess!
