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passing. School Administrative Units are not required to have a secondary vote to exceed any spending limit. Although the spirit of this law should be applauded, it is problematic as it applies to municipalities. This is the formula used to calculate a municipality’s Tax Levy Limit: Last Year’s Municipal Tax Levy Limit + Property Growth Factor (% of Municipal Value Assessed For the 1 st Time) + Income Growth Factor (Calculated and Provided by the State) + Increases/Adjustments to State Funding Current Year’s Municipal Tax Levy Limit The formula appears to take a well-planned approach to keeping the property tax rate stable by limiting the amount that may be spent to the amount that a town’s resources and value have grown. However, this could lead to a false sense of consistency regarding a municipality’s portion of the tax rate. If Select Boards and voters used the Tax Levy Limit as the only means to regulate the growth of taxes, annual tax rates could actually become less stable. This is because it is not possible to determine the true Property Growth Factor (as shown above) for the year in which the Tax Levy Limit applies. The law requires the Property Growth Factor to be calculated using values from “the most recent property tax year for which information is available”. Since all property assessments are as of April 1 st , real estate and personal property values cannot be determined until after the Town Meeting Warrant has been signed. Therefore, the “most recent” information used is that of the prior year. This skews the formula. The level of growth from one year to the next can be substantially different. If the increase of value within the Town during the current year is one half or one quarter of the preceding year (the year in which the Tax Levy Limit is established) and the level of appropriations were based to “stay within the limit”, the annual change in the tax rate could be significantly increased. Likewise, if the growth of the current year is twice or three times as much as the preceding year and the level of appropriations were based to “stay within the limit”, some services might not get fully funded even though the actual growth within the Town supports an increase. Thankfully, the Select Boards I have worked with have generally used past appropriations and anticipated revenues rather than the Tax Levy Limit as a means to try to keep the municipal portion of your taxes stable. I review the Tax Levy Warrant Article with the Select Board annually. They choose to leave the article in the warrant so the voters are familiar with it. It also provides an opportunity for the voters to ask questions. Lastly, when voting on this article, please note State Law prohibits Assessors from committing municipal taxes greater than the Tax Levy Limit. This means that if in a particular year, the Warrant Article to increase or exceed the Tax Levy Limit fails and the appropriations exceed the limit, the Select Board would have to either have a Special Town Meeting or make reductions to approved budgets. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns regarding the assessment of your property. I am happy to answer any question you may have. Respectfully, Debra A. Stitson, C.M.A.

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