Jay's tax rate expected to climb for third year in row

JAY — The tax rate for the 2015-16 fiscal year is expected to rise more than a dollar when selectpersons set the rate at a special meeting at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1, at the Town Office. It will be the third year in a row that taxes have risen.

The rate for 2014-15 is $15.75 per $1,000 of property valuation. That was an increase of $1.75 over 2013-14.

“We anticipate the tax rate going up,” Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere said Monday.

Typically, the town’s assessing agent, Paul Binette, provides selectpersons with three options, she said. She expects those options to all be in the range of $17 per $1,000 of value, she said.

The tax rate to be set Tuesday is based on the April 1 tax year.

It does not take into consideration the recent announcement by Verso Corp. that the company will shut down a paper machine, pulp dryer and eliminate about 300 jobs during the fourth quarter of this year.

The tax rate will include options of overlay amounts, she said. Overlay is used for tax abatements.

The board took $750,000 out of the town’s undesignated fund to help offset the rate increase, LaFreniere said.

“I would suggest they don’t take any money out of the fund this year,” she said.

Jay’s state valuation is $801.95 million this year — about a $217 million decrease — mostly attributed to the decrease in valuation of Verso’s Androscoggin Mill.