Taxes

As we approach the annual town meeting it appears increasingly likely that the tireless efforts of the Town Administrator, and the hoped for action by the Selectmen on trash sticker fees, could obviate the need for an override this year. But whether this year or next, an operational override will be necessary to restore services lost during four years of economic downturn and anemic recovery.

That means we must face the prospect of raising our own taxes. A few weeks ago just such a prospect led one school committee member to remark that the average single-family tax bill in Milton has just passed $5000 in 2005. Now that’s a lot of money. And like most Milton residents, I assumed we shouldered property tax bills bloated by numerous overrides necessitated by a virtually non-existent commercial tax base. Is that the case?

The average single-family tax bill in Milton did indeed rise above $5000 in 2005 – to $5064 to be exact. According to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue that is the 47th highest average tax bill in the state. For some perspective, let’s look back to the year 1990, before many of the overrides that have contributed to our current level of taxation. In that year the average single-family tax bill was $2605. That represented the 31st highest tax bill in the state. In other words, in 15 years we fell 16 places in the rankings of tax bills, despite all the overrides we have passed.

Now let’s narrow the focus from all Massachusetts communities to a list of comparable communities. I’m going to use the list of comparable communities developed by an ad hoc committee put together by the School Long Range Planning Committee. It consisted of Treasurer Kevin Sorgi, School Committee member Mary Kelly, current Warrant Committee member Natalie Monroe, Long Range Planning Committee Co-Chair Greg Hall and myself. Selectman Charlie McCarthy was unable to attend the planning session, but submitted criteria that was incorporated into our deliberations. Here are the criteria we developed.

1. That the community have a K-12 public school system.

2. That the town have an EQV within approximately 10% of Milton's (EQV stands for equalized value, and is a financial factor which measures the taxable wealth, or tax base, of a community. It is relied upon by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue to compare communities in Massachusetts).

3. That the median family income be within 10% of Milton's.

4. That the town population be in the range of 15,000 to 35,000.

5. That the K-12 school enrollment be in the range of 2500 to 4500.

These criteria produced the set of comparable towns, unanimously agreed to, which appears in the following list, ranked by average single-family tax bill for the year 2003.

Belmont…………………………$6,832

Sharon…………………………..$6,086

Westwood………………………$5,870

Hingham………………………..$5,077

Westford………………………..$5,039

Westborough……………………$4,987

North Andover………………….$4,796

Holliston………………………..$4,788

Needham………………………..$4,775

MILTON……………………….$4,713

Walpole…………………………$4,091

Reading…………………………$4,074

Scituate…………………………$3,768

As you can see, Milton ranks 10th out of the 13 comparable communities.

Now let’s jump ahead to the most recent data, for 2005. For this ranking I’m adding an additional piece of data, the percentage of the tax levy each community gets from its commercial/industrial tax base. This information comes from the Department of Revenue and is from 2002, the latest statewide data I could find.

Belmont…………………………$7,686……………..5%

Westwood………………………$6,628……………...27%

Sharon…………………………..$6,628……………..6%

Westborough……………………$5,922……………...40%

Hingham………………………..$5,783………………13%

Westford………………………..$5,704………………17%

Needham………………………..$5,517………………24%

Holliston………………………$5,293………………….11%

North Andover…………………$5,288…………………17%

Reading………………………..$5,279………………….7%

MILTON………………………$5,064………………….6%

Walpole………………………..$4,499………………….15%

Scituate………………………..$4,151…………………...5%

For the current fiscal year Milton has dropped another place in the rankings and is now 11th out of the 13 communities. And of the ten communities ranking above Milton in average tax bills, all but two have a much greater commercial tax base to draw on. Yet, in spite of this these communities still tax the homeowner at levels higher than we do in Milton.

Now I suppose one could argue that these communities are wealthier than we are and can afford these taxes. So let’s look at these tax bills in the context of ability to pay. This next table ranks the communities based on the percentage of median family income (1999 data) represented by their average tax bill.

Belmont…………………….8.1%

Westwood…………………..6.7%

Sharon………………………6.7%

Westborough………………..6.3%

Holliston…………………….6.2%

Hingham…………………….5.9%

Reading………………………5.9%

North Andover……………….5.8%

Westford……………………...5.5%

MILTON……………………..5.4%

Walpole……………………….5.3%

Needham……………………..5.1%

Scituate……………………….4.8%

In percentage of income dedicated to the property tax bill we rank 10th out of 13 communities. All but two of the communities paying a higher percentage of income in property taxes benefit from a much larger commercial property tax base.

Each community decides for itself what level of taxation it wishes to bear. In fact, each voter within each community makes their own decision. In recent weeks, as we struggled with yet another budget crisis, we’ve been advised to lobby Beacon Hill for more money. Beacon Hill is not going to solve our problem, although they might help some. Commercial development, such as the Shops at Milton Centre will not solve our problem, although it will help some. The comparable communities we’ve looked at have commercial tax bases we can only be envious of, and which we probably can never duplicate. They still find it necessary to tax themselves at higher levels, and at a higher percentage of income, to fund services they desire. Only we can solve our problem, and that solution involves either taxing ourselves more to pay for the services we desire, or living with fewer services. And if the decision is the latter, we need to have a frank discussion about how these service cuts are going to be apportioned across all town services.