A Historical View of Brunswick Taxes
Who likes to pay taxes? Who likes to benefit from the services taxes enable us to have? Just rhetorical questions. We probably would get many different answers.
As we move into budget development season, I thought it might be interesting to investigate the historical tax rates in Brunswick. It turns out this information is readily available on the town of Brunswick's website. For those as interested as I am, the link above will take you to this data.
Budget development begins in Brunswick with a poll of town councilors about their comfort level with any tax increase. Comments range from, "I'm not comfortable with anything over 2%" to "We might be able to do 2.5%" ..... or 3%". In other words, comfort levels are all over the place. Let's take a look at the historical tax data.
A look at the tax rate at 10-year intervals (using available data on the website):
1967 $24.60
1977 $17.50
1987 $15.12
1997 $18.00
2007 $13.32
2016 $20.54
What might we learn? That when rates are kept low for long periods of time, it is inevitable that cumulative unmet needs don't go away and rates begin to increase. High rates right themselves over time and low rates right themselves over time.
A look at the lowest and highest rates:
1989 $12.96
1970 $28.83
What might we learn? That our current tax rate is not the highest, nor lowest tax rate in the history of Brunswick. .
A look at the highest rates during a continuous 8-year period of time:
1974 $22.16
1973 $23.77
1972 $27.00
1971 $28.25
1970 $28.83
1969 $26.56
1968 $23.76
1967 $24.60
The rates for this 10 year period coincides with decreasing property valuation from 95% to 55%.
What might we learn? That Brunswick's 2016 tax rate of $20.54 is increasingly approaching the rates of an 8-year continuous period from 1967-1974, during which the tax rates were the highest (using available data).
A look at the average rates during 10-year time periods:
1967-77 $25.97 (decreasing % valuation from 95% to 57%)
1978-88 $18.59 (variable % valuation ranging from 61% to 100%; 100% occurring in 1988)
1989-99 $17.89 (variable % valuation ranging from 84% to 95%)
2000-10 $17.49 (100% valuation in 2000 then variable valuation to 60%)
2011-16 $18.53 (variable % valuation ranging from 66%-70%)
What patterns are there? As property valuation decreases, tax rates increase. Perhaps the completion of the current property revaluation will reduce tax rates as has occurred in the past? What might we project for the next 4 years? Perhaps 2017 is the beginning of a multi-year period of tax rates that will decrease somewhat AND also be stabilized. Brunswick may need to consider the number of projects that have been delayed for a number of years. Let's hope these next years will be the beginning of a period during which the people of Brunswick will take care of its citizens, employees, schools and other buildings, roads, landfills, and all the other needs that have been slowly accumulating to the point that action is required sooner rather than later. Perhaps a higher, but stable year over year tax rate is better so needs can be met as they arise rather than keeping tax rates variably low, only to spike when the unmet needs have reached an unmanageable level.
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