Property Tax Bills Arrive
by Nancy Wood,
August 11, 2011, page 5.....

When they opened their bills this week, Charlotte property taxpayers found little change from last year in the amount of taxes due on November 15. Homeowners found a slight reduction, while owners of other types of property saw a small increase.
The municipal tax rate, which pays for town highways and other services, has gone down by 8.6% for 2011/12. The Selectboard set the rate at $0.1663 per $100 of property value during the July 25 meeting. When added to education taxes, however, the total tax bill for homeowners only went down slightly, by 0.6%, while the taxes on commercial, second home, open land and other nonresidential property increased by 0.5%.
The total tax rate for homeowners, combining municipal and homestead education rates, is $1.5164, which amounts to a tax bill of $4,549 on a $300,000 residential property and $7,582 on a $500,000 property. Homeowners eligible for property tax rebates from the state received credits based on income.
The total nonresidential tax rate, combining the municipal rate and the nonresidential education rate, is $1.537, which amounts to $4,611 on a $300,000 property and $7,685 on a $500,000 property. There is no property tax rebate on nonresidential property.
The major reason for the reduction in the municipal rate to $0.1663 this year from $0.1811 last year was the decision by the Selectboard not to put additional money in the Conservation Fund. The voters approved this decision at Town Meeting on March 1, 2011. In prior years there has been a payment based on two cents on the tax rate, which generated $185,260 last year. Also, slight increases in the General Fund budget are offset by a small increase in the Grand List, which went up by 0.64% from $9,263,019 to $9,322,678. Since the Grand List equals 1% of the total of all taxable property in town, this increase represents about $9 million in real property value.
The Charlotte Central School (CCS) budget was decreased substantially by the School Board, supported by the voters in March, so that the local education tax rate would remain the same as last year. However, reductions in the Champlain Valley Union High School (CVU) budget were less dramatic, resulting in a flat budget but increased rate. Overall, the education tax rate for homeowners (the “homestead” tax rate) increased 0.5% to $1.3501. The nonresidential rate, which is not linked to the local budgets, increased 1.8% to $1.3707.
The Vermont Legislature and governor set the statewide education rates each year. The nonresidential and homestead rates are equalized from town to town by an adjustment based on each town’s Common Level of Appraisal (CLA). The CLA for Charlotte this year is 99.22%, which indicates that assessed property values, in the aggregate, are a little less than 100% of fair market value. Current values were set during the most recent town-wide reappraisal in 2008, which was at about the time the recession was taking hold in Vermont and nationally.
The nonresidential statewide tax rate for this year was set at $1.36, which, when adjusted by Charlotte’s CLA, equals $1.3707.
The statewide homestead tax rate set for this year is $0.87. In addition to the adjustment by the CLA, the homestead rate is affected by several other factors, including the per-student budgets for each school, anticipated revenues and a “base spending amount.” The state set this year’s base spending amount at $8,544 per student, which is the same as in the prior year. After all of these adjustments, the homestead education rate for Charlotte equals $1.3501.