By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Northborough – The Board of Selectmen held a joint meeting and subsequent hearing with the Board of Assessors at its Nov. 18 meeting relevant to tax classification for fiscal year 2020. The BOS unanimously voted to uphold the single-tax rate structure.
Town Administrator John Coderre led the presentation and was joined by Dan Brogie, principal assessor for the town.
The town’s new growth has been certified at $44.8 million, overall property values are up slightly, and the town’s total valuation is up by $132.8 million to just over $3 billion in FY2020, Coderre said.
This new growth will have a positive impact on the average single family home’s FY2020 tax assessment, which was initially projected at last spring’s Annual Town Meeting to be $361. With new growth and with a nominal increase in state aid, the final FY202 tax impact is $294.
Coderre said that this is better growth than what the town has seen in the past few years and he credited the development happening on Bartlett Street. However, he cautioned that there are not a lot of opportunities for significant development remaining in the town and that they have almost reached the point where they will plateau.
He explained that tax classification is a policy some communities adopt to have different tax rates for different classes of property, e.g. residential, open space and commercial industrial and personal property.
Northborough has maintained a single-tax rate since 1979. Coderre emphasized that there are no additional tax dollars raised by employing tax classification practices and the burden is merely shifted among the classifications and usually affecting businesses the most.
“Long-term sustainability means treating everybody fairly and businesses know what to expect when they come into town and what they can expect years later down the road,” Coderre noted.
The towns assessed value remains roughly 75 percent residential and 25 percent commercial.
Board Chair Jason Perreault thanked Coderre for his presentation, remarking “A lot of the success over the last 10 years has been in part due to the strong management…and strong financial leadership has put us in a position to get the best bond rating that the town has ever enjoyed.
Coderre announced that there will be the Annual Financial Trend Monitoring Report Presentation Thursday, Dec. 12, at the Northborough Free Library, 34 Main St., at 7 p.m.