Superintendent’s BOE Request Equals 2.7% Tax Increase

Here’s how it works.

The request is $1,814,810 over last year’s BOE Budget.

As reported by Town Finance Director Ray Jankowski, today’s value of 1 mill is $2,997,190.

$1,814,810 (the recommended increase) divided by $2,997,190 (the value of a mill) equals .6055038

The current mill rate is 22.52

.6055038 divided by 22.52 equals .0268873 or a tax increase of 2.68873%

This calculation assumes that revenues stay flat. Of course, given the state of the economy, it is almost a certainty that revenues will be down.

There’s another way to do this calculation: The current grand list is $2,932,492,514. The total amount to be raised by taxes is $66,042,266. $66,042,266 divided by $2,932,492,514 equals .0225208643. This multiplied by 1000 equals our current mill rate of 22.52

The sum of the Superintendent’s recommended increase ($1,814,810) and the amount to be raised by taxes ($66,042,266) is $67,857,076. This divided by $2,932,492,514 (the current grand list) equals .0231397269. This multiplied by 1000 equals the new mill rate of 23.14. This minus the old mill rate of 22.52 equals a mill rate increase of .62. This divided by the current mill rate of 22.52 equals .027531 or a tax increase of 2.7531% . Note that the tax increase reached in the first method is slightly different from this result due to the number of places to which I did the arithmetic.

What’s the point of all this? The point is that BOE Members have to look very carefully at the impact of its Budget on New Milford’s taxpayers. I posted this because I don’t know if any of them have asked the question. They should. If they do, I want to make sure they get the have the right answer.