MIDDLBEURY — The Middlebury selectboard recently set a 2011-2012 residential property tax rate of $2.5223 per $100 in property value, representing a 4-cent decrease compared to the tax year that ended June 30.
Officials attributed the decrease in large part to schools holding the line on expenses.
Middlebury’s residential education property tax rate has been set at $1.6884 per $100 in property value. That represents a 6.669-cent decrease compared to last year’s residential education property tax rate of $1.7513 per $100 in property value.
Helping out matters greatly was a 2011-2012 UD-3 school budget of $15.6 million that represented 2.03 percent less in spending than the 2010-2011 spending plan. The UD-3 budget includes the combined spending for Middlebury Union Middle School and Middlebury Union High School.
Meanwhile, local voters in April approved a 2011-2012 Mary Hogan Elementary School spending plan of $5,899,867, representing a 2.22-percent spending increase.
Slightly counter-balancing the education property tax decrease is a slight increase is the municipal property tax rate, which town officials set at 81.5 cents per $100 in property value. That’s a bump of 2.5 cents compared to last year. That slight bump comes after two consecutive years of a level municipal property tax rate.
The municipal portion of the tax rate is calculated by dividing by the grand list the sum of budgets approved at town meeting, plus articles approved for funding services, plus discounts voted under state statute for certain military veterans.
Selectboard members also recently approved a nonresidential property tax rate of $2.4449 per $100 in property value, representing a 1.3-cent decrease compared to last year’s rate of $2.4587.
One penny on Middlebury’s tax rate raises $70,870.
“It’s always nice to be able to go down a little bit,” Middlebury Town Manager Bill Finger said of the new rate. “It’s about what we expected.”
Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected].