CANTON – Selectmen at Monday night’s meeting established a tax rate of $13.75 per $1,000 of valuation. It represents a $9.25 drop from the rate of $23 for the previous two years.
Driving the rate down was a revaluation done this year. It hadn’t been done since 1983, said Administrative Assistant Kathy Hutchins.
Because of this, the state valuation for Canton jumped more than $19 million, going from $28,530,000 last year to $47,900,000 this year.
Tax assessments for some people, especially those who have waterfront property, could be huge, while people living in the floodplain could see a large drop.
“To some, it’s going to be a huge shock,” Hutchins said of the 831 tax bills due out soon.
“I hope to get the tax bills out by the beginning of the week to give people extra time to get used to the idea that their taxes may be $1,000 more, but they might also be $1,000 less,” she told selectmen.
The tax rate would have been less by one mill, Hutchins said, if the state reimbursed the town for the full amount of lost tax revenue from the Homestead Exemption program.
Instead, municipalities are reimbursed for only 50 percent of the lost revenue.
That prompted Hutchins’ son Norman, the board’s vice chairman, to say, “The state should be ashamed of themselves.”
A mill in Canton’s tax rate raises about $24,000, Kathy Hutchins said.
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