MEREDITH — After a lengthy public hearing on February 15, the Meredith Board of Selectmen unanimously voted to recommend against the passage of a petitioned warrant article that would enact a 3 percent tax cap, along with two other petitioned articles that will appear on the March town warrant.
Town Manager Troy Brown calculated that, if the tax cap were in place now, Meredith would be able to propose its $12,602,566 operating budget for 2024 and have $627,039 to spare, but would have to cut spending on capital improvement plan projects by $112,961. The total amount of spending in the 2024 warrant would exceed the proposed tax cap by $775,131, he figured.
Brown explained that, under the proposed cap, the town would be allowed to increase taxation by 3 percent over the previous year’s net assessment to taxpayers. In his example, last year’s assessment or “Net Amount Raised” was $12,459,277. By state law, he said, the town would add back the amount of the year-end fund balance that was used to reduce taxes ($385,000), yielding a figure of $12,968,777. That would be the base amount used to determine how much taxation would be allowed this year.
That amount works out to be $13,229,605.31, or $385,328 more than last year’s taxation.
“If the tax cap was in place already,” Brown said, “this would be the cap for the 2024 proposed budget to be discussed in March.”
Brown’s calculation did not take into account the effect of offsetting revenues, which would reduce the tax impact of the spending proposals.
Residents testifying during the public hearing on the tax cap focused on their property assessments, which substantially increased during last year’s revaluation. Mark Johnson said his taxes went up 54 percent last year.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to By The Way to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.