Quote:
Originally Posted by ITD
Ok, apparently this is difficult to understand. How is the tax rate calculated, what determines how much tax is collected? Let's start with the town and then work our way up the chain.
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Each category has a budget that is enacted. The category also has offsets - other revenue (grants/etc). The DRA takes the budget minuses the offsets and that supplies them with what must be raised by the property tax.
That amount is then divided the total property tax within the district (gets a little more complex with multi-district schools due to agreed upon funding formulas).
So if the town needs to raise $50M per budget, but has offsets of $5M, then the property tax must raise $45M. The DRA takes the $45M and divides it by total property valuation within the town. That sets the municipal rate.
The DRA continues down the line until each category rate is set. The category rates added together is the total rate that we are looking at.
The total rate is multiplied by assessed value (fair market value) divided by 1000 and that is your tax.
So a town budget can stay exactly the same... but the loss of a revenue offset can make the amount to be raised by property taxes higher.
The same can happen with the school and county budgets.