WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williamstown will continue its tradition of maintaining a single property tax rate for fiscal 2016.

 

Thanks to a presentation at this week's bimonthly meeting, the members of the Board of Selectmen have a better understanding why that tradition exists.

 

Principal Assessor Bill Barkin was on hand for the board's annual tax classification hearing. Barkin talked the board through a number of options the Selectmen annually face when deciding how the tax levy will be distributed.

 

The board had to decide whether to shift more of the tax burden to commercial/industrial and personal property classes, whether to create a residential exemption that takes a bigger tax bite from second home owners and whether to grant a small business exemption for properties that contain businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

 

Barkin reported that the town's three-member Board of Assessors, which he chairs, voted unanimously to recommend that the Selectmen decline all three options and maintain the uniform tax rate.

 

That rate is estimated to be $15.79 per $1,000 of valuation in 2016, an increase of 18 cents, or just more than 1.1 percent from the last year's rate of 15.61.

 

The levy on the town's $956 million of land valuation will generate just more then $15 million in tax revenue, according to charts Barkin provided.

 

The tax rate for the average home of about $355,677 (assessed in 2015)  would be $5,616, up from $5,552.

 

Splitting the tax rate unevenly between residential and commercial properties would have little benefit to the former and do disproportionate harm to the latter because so little of Williamstown's property (10 percent) is classified as commercial, Barkin explaind.

 

"If you went the full spread of that tax rate [allowed by Massachusetts law], the residential rate would go to $14.84, and in the commercial/industrial, it would go to $23.69," Barkin said at a meeting telecast on the town's community access television station, WilliNet. "That's the maximum. You can go anywhere in between.

 

"Our recommendation is to retain a single tax rate in town."

 

Had the board opted to put as much of the burden as possible on commercial properties, the residential rate would have dropped by just $1.15, or 7 percent, while commercial property owners would have seen their tax rate rise by 50 percent.

 

Past boards have never found that to be a palatable tradeoff, and given the town's current efforts to push economic development, it was a non-starter with the current board.

 

"Personally, I do not encourage any town to split the tax rate without the significant percentage of [commercial/industrial/personal property] valuation required to spread the burden fairly," Barkin wrote in a memo to the board.

 

The "residential exemption" option would shift more of the tax burden to part-year residents. It has the potential to significantly reduce the tax bill for a number of residents, according to numbers Barkin provided. A full-year resident with a $100,000 home could save as much as $423 per year; a resident with a $200,000 home could save up to $292.

 

But there are a number of administrative issues involved with implementing the residential exemption, and it tends to create a "neighbor vs. neighbor" dynamic, Barkin said.

 

"Eleven communities in the state have implemented [the exemption]," he said. "They're mostly on the East Coast, where the minimum of second homes are 20 percent. In Williamstown, it's 10 percent."

 

Barkin's accompanying memo emphasized the potential unfairness of the policy.

 

"[Those negatively impacted] will remind all who listen that as second homeowners they don't burden the schools with kids and don't use the local infrastructure at least half of the year, among other arguments; all while being asked to pay more," Barkin wrote.

 

The small commercial exemption, like the residential exemption, has been adopted by very few towns and cities in the commonwealth, Barkin told the board. Again, his memo cited administrative hitches that might result in uneven application of the relatively new exemption — created in 1993.

 

Barkin also argued in his memo that the small commercial exemption does not necessarily benefit small businesses.

 

"Unless the small commercial property is entirely owner-occupied, it is very unlikely that the small-business owner who is leasing the property will benefit from the exemption," Barkin wrote. "There is no requirement that the reduction in the property tax be passed from landlord to tenant."

 

In the end, the Board of Selectmen followed the recommendations of the Board of Assessors and declined all three options by unanimous votes.

 

While the votes followed the pattern established in past years, Monday's meeting was notable for one break from recent tradition.

 

For the first time in 15 years, the Board of Selectmen were staffed by a new town manager. Jason Hoch, who took over for the recently retired Peter Fohlin, attended his first board meeting.

 

"We're very, very happy to have you here," Chairwoman Jane Patton said. "I've heard from several members of the staff how you've taken the time to get to know them. You always have a smile on your face because, as you've said, this is your dream job."

 

Hoch credited the town's staff for helping him get his feet wet since moving into the corner office on Sept. 8.

 

"The staff has been extremely helpful during that first week," he said. "They're helping me translate what I know from New Hampshire to how you call it in Massachusetts. The fundamentals are the same. The terms are slightly different."

 

In other business on Monday, the board approved a one-day street closure on Southworth Street for the Sts. Patrick & Raphael Parish picnic on Sept. 26, appointed former Selectman Thomas Sheldon as a citizen member of the Affordable Housing Trust Board of Trustees and heard from Hoch that the attorney general's office has approved all 2015 annual town meeting warrants except for the single-use plastic bag bylaw.

 

That bylaw continues to be reviewed in Boston, where the AGO hopes to have a decision by late October. The other bylaws, including the ban on polystyrene food containers, go into effect in February.