Selectman Kim Farah of Danville read a letter to the Timberlane Budget Committee during Public Comment at the standing-room only Dec. 11th meeting. It is too bad events of the day diminished the impact of this letter that may be without precedent in the district.
Timberlane School Budget Committee
Cc: Timberlane Regional School Board
Timberlane Superintendent
New Hampshire Department of Education
Danville State Representatives (Betsy Sanders, Steve Woitkun)
Signed letter attached; letter follows:
SelectmenShawn O’Neil Chris Giordano Annemarie Inman Michelle Cooper Kimberly S. Farah
|
Town of Danville |
Town ClerkChristine Tracy Tax CollectorKimberly T. Burnham |
December 8, 2014
Timberlane Regional School Budget Committee
c/o Timberlane Regional School District
30 Greenough Road
Plaistow, NH 03819
Timberlane Regional School Budget Committee:
In response to a recent meeting of the Timberlane School Board, where Dr. Earl Metzler applauded George Stokinger’s work on reducing the tax impact, the Danville Board of Selectmen would like to remind the TRSB and administration that the town of Danville overwhelming defeated the proposed district school budget last year and instead approved the default budget. Clearly, the intent of the town taxpayer’s was to have a level funded budget for the year. As such, town taxpayers were not anticipating the 6.1% school tax increase (source: Fiscal Year 2015 Cooperative Apportionment from the NH Department of Education) which resulted in a overall tax rate increase of 4.62%. While the BOS understands that the increase is due to a variety of reasons, as the town’s representatives, we would like to reiterate the voter’s position which logically followed from the election results: the majority of the townspeople desired a default school district budget which would not increase the town’s tax rate in the upcoming year. Currently, the town of Danville has the 5th highest tax rate in the state. As you move forward with budget deliberations for the upcoming year, we request that the proposed budget reflect the town’s vote. That is, a district budget, regardless of surplus, that will not result in yet another large tax increase for the town of Danville.
Respectively,
Danville Board of Selectmen
Patricia Shogren
Selectmen’s Administrator
Town of Danville
210 Main Street
Danville, NH 03819
Here is Dr. Farah (she has two PhD.s) reading the letter:
timberlaneandsandown 
Actually, per the NH Dept of Revenue, reporting on 2014 tax rates at http://www.revenue.nh.gov/mun-prop/municipal/documents/2014-local.pdf
Danville’s tax RATE is the 22nd highest in the state…
Of course, tax rate by itself is meaningless since it ignores valuation. Danville’s total valuation is less than 1/2 that of Atkinson’s, for instance, from the same source.
Municipality Town Valuation Total Tax Rate Tax Rate in NH
CLAREMONT 689,783,208 41.33 1
TROY 107,461,178 35.1 2
ALLENSTOWN 245,729,936 33.78 3
KEENE 1,847,044,075 33.68 4
BERLIN 453,261,639 33.35 5
BROOKLINE 499,992,287 32.85 6
NORTHUMBERLAND 110,519,481 32.6 7
HOPKINTON 609,948,415 32.56 8
PENACOOK 0 32.39 9
NEWPORT 420,680,350 31.64 10
CHARLESTOWN 282,349,900 31.49 11
SOMERSWORTH 833,520,920 31.14 12
BETHLEHEM 221,490,414 30.83 13
GORHAM 275,097,300 30.68 14
HENNIKER 388,320,090 30.68 15
WINCHESTER 280,109,475 30.58 16
PETERBOROUGH 590,394,096 30.56 17
DURHAM 916,456,045 30.52 18
LISBON 108,167,899 30.4 19
LEE 416,878,532 29.7 20
PEMBROKE 586,793,797 29.7 21
DANVILLE 334,109,444 29.65 22
BOW 1,054,318,690 29.51 23
GILSUM 59,182,739 29.47 24
JAFFREY 455,390,540 29.45 25
DERRY 2,486,319,882 29.42 26
Dr. Farah was talking about School tax rate not overall tax rate, Mr. Bealo. Tax rates are related to assessment value, of course, but a high rate shows that the people of Danville are paying more as a proportion of their wealth than Atkinson and Plaistow.
And for the benefit of readers, Mr. Bealo’s rhetorical device above is the most commoly employed one at the district: change the subject (from school tax rate to overall tax rate) and pretend it is not changing the subject but actually addressing the issue. You will see this done over and over at meetings and in these comments.
Oh: and as I and others have been stating but the Danville Selectmen refuse to address, NH provided Danville with $345,000 LESS in education aid last year: this translates to ~ $1.04 property tax increase to Danville residents, a 3.6% tax increase in and of itself.
Oh, and that $340,000 reduction is over YEARS. From this year to last year, Danville’s adequacy aid is down by about $70,000 ONLY.[from memory will correct if in error] And this is entirely sensible. The state needs to adjust downward to reflect Danville’s declining enrollment. Adequacy Aid is on a per pupil basis.