February 28,2014
In response to the Feb. 25 Rutland Herald article entitled “(Killington) School budget would add 17 cents to tax rate”:
The first sentence in the article states, “Residents are looking at a proposed school budget that is increasing 1 percent, but would add 17 cents to the tax rate.” This statement is at best grossly misleading and at worst maliciously damaging to the integrity of the upcoming vote on the Killington Elementary School budget.
While the first part of the statement is true that the proposed elementary school budget is to increase by 1 percent, this increase on its own does not result in a 17-cent increase in the homestead property tax rate affecting residential taxpayers.
The 17-cent increase is the total potential increase in the homestead tax rate from the combined budgets of the Killington Elementary and Woodstock Union High School.
The numbers are from two different sources: the Killington Elementary School numbers are from the town report, and the Windsor Central Supervisory Union numbers are from David Leenders of the supervisory union.
The tax impact of the Killington Elementary School is 7 cents and 6 cents in the KES and W.C.S.U models respectively, not the 17 cents stated in the article. The balance of 10 cents is from the impact of the Woodstock High School budget.
Please understand that the KES and Woodstock High School budgets are separate votes. Also, without complicating matters further, the 2015 budget calculation includes the proposed state increase of 7 cents in the base homestead rate used in calculating the homestead rate for Killington. While not a one-for-one correlation, it has a significant impact, so the 6-cent and 7-cent rate increases in the respective calculations are even less attributable to the KES budget increase.
Vito Rasenas
Killington
The first sentence in the article states, “Residents are looking at a proposed school budget that is increasing 1 percent, but would add 17 cents to the tax rate.” This statement is at best grossly misleading and at worst maliciously damaging to the integrity of the upcoming vote on the Killington Elementary School budget.
While the first part of the statement is true that the proposed elementary school budget is to increase by 1 percent, this increase on its own does not result in a 17-cent increase in the homestead property tax rate affecting residential taxpayers.
The 17-cent increase is the total potential increase in the homestead tax rate from the combined budgets of the Killington Elementary and Woodstock Union High School.
The numbers are from two different sources: the Killington Elementary School numbers are from the town report, and the Windsor Central Supervisory Union numbers are from David Leenders of the supervisory union.
The tax impact of the Killington Elementary School is 7 cents and 6 cents in the KES and W.C.S.U models respectively, not the 17 cents stated in the article. The balance of 10 cents is from the impact of the Woodstock High School budget.
Please understand that the KES and Woodstock High School budgets are separate votes. Also, without complicating matters further, the 2015 budget calculation includes the proposed state increase of 7 cents in the base homestead rate used in calculating the homestead rate for Killington. While not a one-for-one correlation, it has a significant impact, so the 6-cent and 7-cent rate increases in the respective calculations are even less attributable to the KES budget increase.
Vito Rasenas
Killington
No comments:
Post a Comment