Good afternoon!

We have looked at the town's property taxes and some of the faux paux of Caitlin the Clueless et al. But, she hardly mentioned those desperate, dispicable, defiant, discredited DISTRICTS! So, let's do the analysis that Caitlin couldn't be bothered with. Let's look at district property taxes. Seatbelts fastened? you may be in for a few surprises. Remember, the Districts are NOT subject to the limits of proposition 2.5.

1. The good  -  Wareham Fire District.  Wow! what a surprise, indeed!

Here's the deal. Using the average assessed values for FY2012 & fy2013 cited before ($254,393 & $230,136), and applying the tax rates for the WFD for the two years ($1.88 & $2.05) yields the following: The tax bill on a single-family dweliing with the average assessed values for the two years went from $478.26 in FY12 to $471.78 in FY13. A DECREASE of $6.98, or 1.35%.

That's right! The average Tax bill for the WFD went DOWN! How did Caitlin miss that?

The levy went up by $111, 853, an increase of 2.36%. Again, this is a result of a DECREASE in residential property assessments, while the CIP group remain constant +/-. this results in a SHIFT from residential to the CIP taxpayers. A similar pattern was seen in the Town-wide data in a previous post.

2. The bad  =  Onset Fire District. Wow! what a surprise, indeed!

Using the average assessed value of $254,393 for FY2012 and the tax rate for the OFD of $1.93 yields a tax bill of $490.98 for the OFD. The average assessed value of $230,136 for FY2013 with the OFD tax rate of $2.57 yields a tax bill for FY2013 of $591.45.

That's an INCREASE of $100.47! that computes to an increase of a mere 20.96%, rounded to 21% !!!!!

How did Caitlin and company miss that ????

3. The Ugly  - the whole District thing, IMO. Yes, Dan-O is going to jump on me to remind me that it is politically impossible to slay these dinosaurs. But look at these calculations. These dudes are out-of-control. Oh, the WFD looks good this year, but it will 'revert to the mean' in the future; didn't I read about a new fire station?

So, if one assumes that the Districts are locked in place, then could there be just ONE District? Has anyone ever done a financial anaysis to either support & justify their existence, or to point to absorbtion by the Town? or to consolidation?

OK DanO, fire away.......