NORTH ADAMS -- The City Council scheduled a fiscal 2013 property tax classification hearing for Dec. 18, at 7:30 p.m., in Council Chambers, at a special meeting Tuesday night.
Mayor Richard J. Alcombright said at the meeting that the city’s annual tax levy increased by three percent this year. A municipal tax levy is a breakdown of what must be paid by each property owner in order to fund a city or town’s activities.
The levy increase is set to couple with a local trend, also reflected by the city, of dipping property values, leading Alcombright to say in an interview after Tuesday’s meeting that city taxpayers should expect a slight increase on this year’s bills.
"I would suggest that there will be a very nominal increase on the average family’s tax bill," Alcombright said.
The setting of this year’s rates runs slightly behind that of the two preceding years, as 2012 marks as a tri-annual revaluation year of the city’s real estate.
Alcombright said the process is "more complicated" during a revaluation year, but that he’s "confident we’ll have the numbers" back from the state tax assessor’s office for the scheduled hearing date. The revaluation is a state-mandated process.
These figures were recently relayed from Springfield to Boston, Alcombright said.
Last year, City Council agreed upon an increase of residential tax rates from $14 to $14.82
For the average single-family home valued at $135,000, that meant an increase of $112 on their bill.
The commercial, industrial and personal property tax rate was increased 4.2 percent, or $1.34, from $31.49 to $32.83 per thousand dollars of valuation.
The city maintains a tax classification shift of 1.75 percent that favors residents.
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