The new school and town office were factors that drove the rate up.
SABATTUS – Selectmen have set the new tax rate at 23 mills, a half mill increase from last year.
The new rate means the average resident will pay approximately $100 a year more in taxes, according to William Luce, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.
A spike in health insurance and a decrease in school funding, among other things, has fueled the rise in the rate, Luce said. “Those are some of the things driving it (up),” he said. Before setting the rate, selectmen looked at how other area towns have been assessing, Luce said. “So it is defendable,” he said.
Selectwoman Rudy Gayton agreed. She said selectmen wanted to keep the rate at 22.5 mills. But, in light of the new school being built in town and the new town office completed earlier in the year, 23 mills was the fairest rate that selectmen could go with, Gayton said.
In other news, at Tuesday night’s selectmen’s meeting Janet Camardese called for conditions to be improved at Furbish Cemetery off Upper Old Stage Road.
“It’s overgrown, and it’s in sad condition,” she said. Most of the headstones are gone, Camardese said. “This is the cemetery that a body was dug up a few years back,” she said.
ATV and snowmobile riders have been going right through the cemetery, Camardese said. “I think it’s appalling,” she said, adding that the cemetery needs new fencing.
“We will get the fence put back up,” Luce said.
Luce assured Camardese that selectmen would act on the issue. “We’ll take care of it for you,” he said.
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