At its morning meeting of November 6, 2017 the Board set the 2017 tax rate at $23.28, leaving unchanged the preliminary tax rate set by the NH Department of Revenue Administration.
The 2017 tax rate has decreased from $27.98 to $23.28, $4.70 less than the 2016 tax rate but…your tax bill has likely gone up. How come?
Our overall tax burden or tax effort is the amount of money that we need to raise from taxes. The 2017 tax burden has increased by 2.1% with much of the increase due to the county. The Strafford County tax burden/effort grew by more than 25% (over $122,000); the town by about 5%; the school district by about 1.2% and the state education burden decreased by over 18%.
With the revaluation process conducted over the past year, our overall town valuation increased by almost 23% from $227.7 million to $279.5 million.
So how to make sense of your tax bill and your new assessed value? If your overall 2017 tax bill (June and December) has increased from your 2016 bill by more than 2.1% (the increase in the tax effort/burden) then the value of your property has increased more than the average Rollinsford property. If your overall 2017 tax bill has decreased then the value of your property has decreased relative to the average Rollinsford property.