Residents' tax rate increased - Sentinel & Enterprise

City councilors voted to shift more of the property tax burden onto Fitchburg residents Wednesday night, in an effort to make doing business in the city less costly.

[bill]

this article is either poorly written or an attempt to confuse people. who wanted to make homeowners pay more and who wanted to be equitable and protect the homeowners?

[hey bill]

If you're too stupid to comprehend, then maybe you shouldn't be commenting

[fedupwithpolitic ians]

you can bet they won't becoming around to re-evaluate our property values to match the market they would lose tax money

[lincoln street]

didnt these cacksockers on the council just raise property tax last year

[MAD TAXPAYER]

IT SURE IS FUNNY THIS DID NOT HAPPEN BEFORE THE ELECTION.I FOR ONE WILL NOT FORGET WHAT YOU DID TO US NEXT ELECTION.

[Amen]

Joe Solomito hit it right on, mostley UNITIL is the problem.

[bill]

solomito has no clue. the guy said he didn't want to raise taxes. what! didn't he voted for the 2.5 raise?

dinatale, wants more money for lights, police, and stick it to the homeowners! thanks kid, the self proclaim 'for the taxpayers'.

water rate and fees increase, after the election.

stick it to the homeowners, after the election.

very convenient!

[Behind the Curve]

Nice re-write S&E, just yesterday an article about this apparently didn't have an inflamatory enough headline and so had to be removed!

Replaced with the highly enraging headline...

Residents' tax rate increased - Sentinel & Enterprise

What a pathetic rag.

Emily, your doing the devils work.

[taxes]

Did anyone expect anything different after an election? City councel and Wong knew way before the voting that they would need to raise money,but waited until the voting was over to stick it to the homeowners, and anybody else who comes into fitchburg!

[John]

Wow, it's amazing how few people understand how this works.

Fitchburg, like most municipalities has raised propery taxes 2.5 percent (the maximum allowed) on property that was in the tax base the previous year every year. The only way they can collect MORE than that is to have more taxable propery. IOW growth - new homes or new business.

The vote on the split only determines what percentage of the total property taxes will be paid by commercial vs. residential. Your assesment means squat in this equation. You property assesment went down but likely so did your neighbors. The rates are set to raise the same amount of money. In other words - lower assessment times higher rate (with 2.5% calculated in) mean you tax bill will be greater than last year by 2.5% PLUS the amount the council voted to shift from commercial to residential.

For the most part Councilor Solomito hit the nail squarely on the head. Leominsters phenominal growth is a result of it's access to the highway NOT it's single tax rate.

BTW if Leominster doesn't smarten up with the way they handle traffic (stop signs and signals aren't always the best solutions) they risk killing that golden goose.

[David]

people in the burg are still paying less than the poor folks in Greenville!

[Economics 101]

Easy highway access has contributed to its RETAIL success, but a vast majority of the commercial and industrial tax base is not retail. These business don't necessarily need high visibility or easy access, they need low operating expenses! The dual rate in Fitchburg, combined with ridiculously high sewer and water connection rates are factors that contribute to Fitchburg's lack of business success.

As far as the dual rate is concerned, businesses are already over subsidizing the residential tax base. Commercial property owners, unlike residential ones, do not use most city services. They don't use the schools and they pay for their own trash pickup. They also pay a personal property tax on any equipment owned and used to make money.

[I AGREE]

Amen wrote:

Joe Solomito hit it right on, mostley UNITIL is the problem.

I was going to write the same thing. Solomito is correct. Large industrial business won't spend what Unitil rates are when they can go one city over and have much cheaper and much more reliable power. The highway situation is horrible too. No business worth having is going to come to Fitchburg just because they'll save a few dollars on taxes that they could have written off anyways.

Get rid of Unitil and you'll attrack industries like sunflower seeds in a bird feeder!!

[Um Not Exactly]

David wrote:

people in the burg are still paying less than the poor folks in Greenville!

You can't compare our property tax to Greenville because their property tax covers things that are not taxed there. They don't have a sales tax, no alcohol tax, no restaurant tax etc. Don't know if they still don't have an income tax but anyways NH pays for their needs with one tax...property. It's not a level comparison at all.

[Mike from Leominster]

Joe - all three are a problem. AT least take care of the one you can control.

[Amen]

bill wrote:

solomito has no clue. the guy said he didn't want to raise taxes. what! didn't he voted for the 2.5 raise?
dinatale, wants more money for lights, police, and stick it to the homeowners! thanks kid, the self proclaim 'for the taxpayers'.
water rate and fees increase, after the election.
stick it to the homeowners, after the election.
very convenient!

Bill, seriously you must know our taxes have to go up. Joe Solomito is right about Unitil being the problem. If we could sell our house at a decent rate we would be gone.

[taxes]

Economics 101 wrote:

Easy highway access has contributed to its RETAIL success, but a vast majority of the commercial and industrial tax base is not retail. These business don't necessarily need high visibility or easy access, they need low operating expenses! The dual rate in Fitchburg, combined with ridiculously high sewer and water connection rates are factors that contribute to Fitchburg's lack of business success.
As far as the dual rate is concerned, businesses are already over subsidizing the residential tax base. Commercial property owners, unlike residential ones, do not use most city services. They don't use the schools and they pay for their own trash pickup. They also pay a personal property tax on any equipment owned and used to make money.

apparently you live in bitchburg

[bill]

yup, blame it on unitil. solomito takes a play from the democratic party's play book. find someone or something to blame to divert his many votes on spending. hell, he voted to raise taxes to 2.5 in all the years he'd served but hey, the voters are too stupid to remember as long as he blame unitil.

[Thankfull Former Resident]

I moved out of the city in 2004 because I could see the writing on the wall, and the opportunity was there.
I sold my condo and bought moved to the country with 3+acres of land and virtually no crime.
My taxes are still less than what I was paying in Fitchburg at the time I left.
Fitchburg is so screwed up that we could see an economic boom in Mass. and they would still raise taxes.
Folks, "it aint gonna get better" anytime soon, and it is rapidly becoming an undesirable place to raise a family or start a buisiness because of the high crime rate.
GOOD LUCK!!!

[Bruce W Marien]

Plain economics teaches people that you cannot continue providing services if the increases in income don't keep pace with the increases in expenses.

The state pays a large portion of the income to Fitchburg for its operations and the state has cut back and will continue to cut back. If the residents in a city or town don't make up the difference, services will be cut...that is reality.

We had an opportunity in taking more control of our local taxes by repealing the state sales tax and voters turned it down. We could have taken the tax money we were giving to the state and give it to our local cities and towns. We now have the same people in Boston that are always concerned only with Boston taking more of our income in taxes for BOSTON. The voters are getting what they voted for...