WHITMAN – While unanimously voting to set the tax rate on Tuesday, Nov. 28 the Select Board also signaled its concerns for residents who might be forced out of their homes by the decision.
The board to adhere to historic precedent and set a single tax rate for fiscal 2024 during the town’s annual tax classification hearing. The Board of Assessors had voted to recommend adoption of the single tax rate, with no commercial or residential exemptions, which is also customary. They estimate the excess levy capacity to be $4,435.48.
“The town has always voted a single tax rate, as opposed to a split rate,” Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said.
By a vote of 4-0 the Select Board voted in favor of the recommendations. Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski was absent.
Resident John Galvin, of 41 High St., who has served on the finance committee as well as the Whitman Middle School Building Committee, voiced concerns about the ability of elderly and low-income residents to bear the tax burden.
“I stand here challenging the [Select Board], to start taking the lead instead of just letting all of this happen,” Galvin said. “In the last year, this board just let this all happen.”
He said it was time the board consider how to help seniors and low-income people, who are in “significant risk” of being forced out of their homes.
“I don’t know what, but we have to do something in order to help those taxpayers out,” he said.
The Board of Assessors has vowed to “leave no stone unturned” in an effort to help low-income and senior residents.
Select Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said that in his 30 years on the Finance Committee and Select Board, the town has always done a factor one tax rate. Why?
“By not doing factor one, we put more pressure on the businesses in town,” Salvucci said. “What’s going to happen is we’re either going to drive businesses out of own or they’re going to increase their prices. … Rents are going to go up. It’s going to hurt the citizens one way or the other.”
Businesses are what keeps the town going he said, but also expressed his concern for seniors.
“I’m a senior, but we have a town to run and businesses are a big part of it,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans agreed with Salvucci’s point on businesses and noted that a couple of other towns have begun to look at tax exempt properties and trying to negotiate a pilot payment from them.
Select Board member Laura Howe, who said she, too, is a “pretty much” a senior, too but noted Galvin brought up low-income residents and expressed her willingness to work with anyone who has a solution to help taxpayers in general.
“Low-income is huge,” she said. “There are people suffering and I have made note of that several times of what not being able to pay your bills does to a family. It’s very destabilizing and it affects [people] across the board.”
Galvin’s questions centered on the estimated status of tax receipts, and whether an exclusion has yet been taken for the middle school project.
“I’m thinking, now that we are out of the feasibility study that there will be significant expenses this year as we move forward in design, and I don’t know if that’s going to be something that we wait for the district to put that through in the upcoming budget, or is that something that needs to be considered?” he asked. “With the estimated receipts not being certified by the DOR, with an excess levy of only $44,000 as of right now, if there are any estimated receipts that are not necessarily approved, so that number comes down a little, do we still have room to adjust?”
Carter agreed with his characterization of the process that the town would have to wait until the district makes the assessment for the middle school project.
“We have not done any borrowing yet for either the DPW or the middle school,” Carter said.
Assistant Town Administrator Kathleen Keefe said the estimated receipts are never approved until the town submits them to the DOR to set the tax rate. The tax classification held this week is the first step in that process.
Figuring it out
Principal Assessor Wendy Jones provided a presentation to update the board on the town’s fiscal situation including approved values by the Department of Revenue for the valuation of all classes for the town of Whitman and approved new growth figures, most of which is new construction.
“This is the point at which we can vote to distribute, based on the percentages of the levy in each class, and shift the burden with factor ratings from residential, commercial, industrial and personal property classes,” she said. “This is something we do every year, based on when the values have been approved and adjusted based on [property] sales.”
The valid 2022 sales, also approved by the DOR, were the primary reference point.
“Based on those sales, it determines how much we adjust each class and what types of adjustments we do for each class,” she said. “We’re also looking at the properties in terms of the assessment as of Jan. 1.”
As a Chapter 653 community, Whitman is allowed to assess new growth and construction beyond Jan. 1, as well as sending out supplementary bills on new construction, Jones added.
A full property revaluation, also known as certification is completed every five years. The last one occurred in 2022. Interim year adjustments are based on the market sales analysis during non-certification years, Jones explained.
Whitman’s total approved valuation for 2024 is $2,510,191,250 – of that, 89.5 percent, or $2,246,581,005 is residential; 4.6 percent or $114,771,466 is commercial; 1.1 percent, or $27,947,905 is industrial and 4.8 percent, or $120,890,874 is personal property.
Estimated numbers still to be finalized and approved by DOR put the total amount to be raised, as voted by Town Meeting, at $50,522,578.95, with the town’s total estimated receipts at $18,542,742.43. The tax levy needed to be raised by property taxes is $31,979,836.52.
“That is the levy, based on last year’s levy, plus 2.5 percent, plus new growth and then the debt exclusion, and we haven’t exceeded that, so that’s good,” she said.
The tax rate is reached by dividing the tax levy by the total value of the town. Tax rate shifts, in 5 percent increments are permitted, up to a factor of 1.5, if the Select Board wished to vote in that way.
The usually supported factor of 1.0 puts the tax rate at $12.7 for all classifications. If a factor of 1.5 was to be approved, it would bring the residential rate down to $11.99 by increasing the other classifications up to $19.11.
Shifting the burden in such a way would be detrimental to the town’s business climate, the board has argued.
The average single-family house, valued at $470,189, would bring a tax bill of $5,990 in a 1.0 factor, with a factor of 1.5 bringing the bill down by $174, while increasing the tax for commercial, industrial and personal property classes of $1,588.
Galvin had asked if only single-family homes were included in the calculations, and Carter assured him they were.
“In a lot of the analysis that we were doing on the middle school we were just seeing how it affected single-family homes and not necessarily multi-family homes,” he said. “I sat here last year at this meeting and I voiced my concern over the impact that the taxpayers were going to get hit in the next year or two years, three years. Two of those projects – the DPW building and the WMS building. I have been voted and approved by voters of Whitman. Now we’re looking at South Shore Tech … low-income residential exemption – seniors. … In my opinion, there’s a crisis with that class – low-income seniors.”
Galvin noted that Whitman would not have a lot of say in the South Shore Tech project.
“I stand here, challenging the [Select Board] to start taking the lead instead of just letting all of this stuff happen,” he said, “In the last year, this board just let this all happen … and it all happened and, yet, we’ve got taxpayers – seniors, low income – who are in significant risk of being forced out of this town.”
A small commercial exemption, for property owned by a certifies business that employs fewer than 10 people and is worth $1 million or less, is permitted, but the board has not supported it because most small businesses lease their space – which benefits only the property owner. Residential exemptions are permitted for higher-priced owner-occupied homes or large numbers of rental properties.