Over the past two months I’ve taken time to review the Joint Charter Commission report on a merger and find myself perplexed by the calculations. One, however, is so shockingly wrong that it needs to be called out as it provides much of the later “tax savings.”
In rebuttal to those supporting the merger I question the accounting and to date no answers have been provided to refute me.
Page 72 of the report indicates the median home value is $147,500 in Lewiston and the average property tax bill is $4,036.
As chairperson of the Lewiston Finance Committee and a past councilor I have spent significant time reviewing these numbers and felt something was incorrect. In fact, the median home value in Lewiston is $98,300 and that home generates a tax bill of either $2,331 and $2,667, the lower being with Homestead exemption.
The actual tax bill could be as much as 43 percent less than what the report tells you. These numbers can be verified by the city administrator and city tax assessor.
Why are the numbers so different?
Why does the Auburn information reflect just as badly?
Consider the report tells us we will save $125 a year based on their model — but their baseline data is incorrect by almost half. Can we believe any other numbers that follow might be off by that 43 percent?
This alone makes me question much more of the report and the taxpayer dollars spent to create it.
We should expect better from elected representation
Robert Reed, Lewiston
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