LIVERMORE FALLS — Selectmen voted Tuesday to set the tax rate for 2012-13 at $20.80 per $1,000 of valuation. The rate has remained the same for the past two years.

The rate gives the town an $89,266.25 overlay, Town Manager Kristal Flagg said.

The minimum tax rate that could have been set was $20.22 per $1,000 of property value and the maximum was $21.23.

The total taxable valuation of the town, according to the municipal tax rate calculation form, is $151.5 million.

Selectmen agreed last year to keep the tax rate steady so that taxpayers would not see an unsteady fluctuation of rates.

The town did not use the bulk of the $146,000 overlay from last year, Flagg said. The remaining money goes back into the undesignated fund balance. If the full $89,266.25 is not used this year, then the remainder will go into the undesignated fund balance.

The money from both years could be used next year to help offset the $350,000 that the town won’t have left in a cash balance left over from the former RSU 36 to offset the school budget, Flagg said.

Each of the three towns in RSU 73 had cash balances left when RSU 36 and Jay School Department consolidated on July 1, 2011. Half the funds were expended in the first year of consolidation to help offset school assessments, and the second half is scheduled to be used this year.

The town’s valuation went up this year. One dollar on the tax rate last year was worth $140,000, Flagg said. This year, $1 per $1,000 of value on the tax rate is worth $155,000, she said.

Without factoring in the $10,000 Homestead Exemption or other allowed exemptions, a property valued at $100,000 would be taxed $2,080. A property valued at $75,000 would be taxed $1,560, and one valued at $50,000 would be taxed $1,040.

In other business, selectmen voted not to accept the closed Livermore Falls Middle School from RSU 73. The school board voted at an August meeting to offer the school back to the town.

Residents in Livermore and Livermore Falls voted 346-37 in May 2011 to close the school as of June 30, 2011. Middle school students from those towns now attend the Spruce Mountain Middle School in Jay.

An article passed at the annual town meeting allows the Livermore Falls Board of Selectmen to accept or reject property offered to the town, board Chairman Bill Demaray said.

The school district will have to look at other options for the building that could include selling it or finding funds to demolish it.

Any money gained from the sale could be used as a credit for the town next year toward its share of the school budget, RSU 73 Superintendent Robert Wall told selectmen.

“I don’t know what the town would use (the building) for,” Selectman James Collins said.

It would be a nice property to have but there would need to be a revenue stream to support it, he said.

Wall also said there are liabilities that would come with owning the building.

When the district’s Building Disposition Committee reviewed what to do with the building, Wall said, the lowest estimate to remove asbestos was $18,000.

It was also estimated that it would cost $605,000 to demolish the entire building and remove the debris, he said.

It was estimated that it would cost $380,000 to demolish the main building, $90,000 to demolish the addition and $135,000 to demolish the connector portion and the gym, according to the minutes of the Disposition Committee.

dperry@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link