What’s In a Mill - The Glastonbury Educated Voter

Google Sheet Link

This link will take you to a google sheet where you can test to see what your costs are for projects.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9eCs5vhEKonZbCFh2aEAUfZW4qyns8Bzic7mmZf4ts/edit?usp=sharing

Article

One thing I’ve found is that many, if not most, people don’t know exactly what a mill is in terms of property taxes. This letter aims to demystify mill rates and their impact on your property taxes. The word “mill” comes from the Latin word millesimum, which means “one-thousandth part”.

A mill rate, essentially a property tax rate, is calculated as 1/1000 your property’s value. For example, if your home is assessed at $100,000 and the mill rate is 31.01, you owe $3,101. An increase to 32.32 would raise your bill to $3,232 annually, an extra $131 or about $11 per month.

Most people don’t live in a $100,000 home so will need to expand that number to the 2022 evaluation. If you don’t know your home’s assessed value, you can find it at vgsi.com.

Assessed values and appraised values are different. Connecticut towns must tax all real and personal property at 70% of its fair market value (CGS § 12-63). (5)

So what is the tax increase that Mr. Gullotta mentioned in last week’s breakdown in his article “From the Council Chair’s Desk”? A mill rate increase of 1.31, would be $131.61 for every $100,000 of assessed value of your home. If your assessed home value is $300,000 you will pay an extra $394.83 or $32.90 a month.

If you rent, these tax increases will likely affect you as well. “Passing on costs to customers” is a very common practice. (4)

Mr. Gullotta told us last week that one mill was worth $5.2 million dollars in taxes. We can reverse engineer that math to find out how much projects in 2024 will cost you. That $900,000 repair estimate for Cotton Hollow Mill will cost someone in a $300,000 assessed home $51.92, or $4.33 a month. Some of these costs can be offset by grants or bonds, but this approach gives you an idea of your actual bill.

I have put a spreadsheet to help you calculate these costs on glastonburyvoter.com under the tab ‘Articles’.

To mitigate these tax increases, there are a few things we can do. While one might think adding more homes would lower the tax burden, this is only the case in densely urban areas. The group urbanthree.com provides detailed graphs of cities and municipalities showing net tax growth and deficit. (1)

Attracting more businesses shifts some tax responsibilities from residential to commercial properties. This is another reason to support local businesses! (3)

Finally, while reducing spending is an option, it requires careful consideration to balance budget cuts with the need to maintain essential services. If other residents have quantifiable suggestions for ways to reduce spending without hurting town services, please let us know!

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