The three-dozen people who went to Petersham Town Hall on Jan. 18 were intent on getting an explanation for the significant increase to their property tax bills.
Property owners saw increases ranging from 17 to 35% over last year’s tax obligation.
The tax rate for FY23 is set at $15.79 per $1,000 of property value, compared to the previous fiscal year’s rate of $13.54/$1,000.
Ellen Anderson, chair of the town’s Board of Assessors, explained that one reason for the increase is a significant jump in property values in recent years.
“These very large increases in value actually took place in calendar year 2021,” said Anderson at the meeting.
“If you remember what was going on then, 2020 was the pandemic, 2021 was people coming out of Boston and moving into rural areas. We had a really astonishing rise in property values. So, that is reflected in the valuations that you see in your homes.”
Anderson explained that anyone believing their home has been overvalued can file for an abatement. She said increases to property values is an issue across the Commonwealth, “but especially in rural places where people wanted to come during the pandemic years.”
Assistant Town Assessor Andrea Gale said the median property value in Petersham for FY23 is just under $302,000.
Richard Cavanaugh, chair of the Advisory Finance Committee, added that this year’s increase can be attributed to the fact that FY22 tax bills were “shy 10% of what it should have been.” This was due to an error made at Town Meeting—when the FY22 budget was approved—leaving the town short more than $400,000 for that year’s budget.
“The warrant article that was on the 2022 fiscal year budget for the annual Town Meeting was exactly correct,” said committee Vice Chair Mark Bishop.
“It was a problem with the motion, and the motion underballed the amount of money that needed to be raised by $437,000. You did not pay that in taxes; instead, it came out of stabilization, or our savings account. Because by the time we discovered it, it was past the time of year when the tax rate had to be set. But know this; you did pay a lot more that year than it looked like on last year’s tax bill, because you depleted your savings.”
As a result, the $437,000—earmarked for Petersham Center School — wasn’t included in the overall tax burden, thus resulting in the relatively low tax rate of $13.54/$1,000.
The previous year’s tax bills were based on a rate of $15.31/$1,000.
“If you kind of take away that $13 amount, you can see that we’re in this range of $15 and that it only got corrected, if you will, to $15.79 because the budget had only gone up, in a way – we take every budget very seriously, so I don’t mean to use that word, ‘only,’ lightly – but we went from $15.31 in Fiscal Year 21 to only about 40 cents more to $15.79,” said Selectboard Chair Nancy Allen.
Allen added that the town had large increases in the budget, almost entirely focused on education spending—the hardest to control.
When asked why tax bills went up an average of 27% instead of just 2.5%, Cavanaugh explained that Proposition 2 ½ doesn’t deal with the assessed value of the homes.
“It’s aside from that,” Cavanaugh said. “Two and a half only affects what we can do with what we’re allowed to raise for money. What we can raise for money is based on what our properties are assessed at. So, if the property assessments go way up like this, then our ability to tax goes up to.”
When asked if the $621,000 Proposition 2 ½ debt exclusion to pay for demolition of the Nichewaug Inn & Academy had any impact on the tax rate, Allen said, “The Nichewaug Inn has nothing to do with any of this because we have not yet paid any loan amounts out for that. That won’t start until next year.”
Those in attendance seemed relatively satisfied with the reasons given for the increase in their property tax bills—if not with the increase itself.
Gale pointed out that anyone wishing to dispute the assessed value of their property should contact the assessor’s office. Payment of tax bills is due by April 21.