TROY — Rising bills for both the Monadnock Regional School District and Cheshire County hiked Troy’s tax rate this year.
The N.H. Department of Revenue Administration has set Troy’s tax rate at $29.03 per $1,000 of assessed value. This rate is $4.56, or 18.6 percent higher, than last year’s rate of $24.47.
Troy’s ratio of assessment is 76.1 percent, according to town Administrative Assistant Cynthia N. Satas. This means that a property with a market value of $200,000 would likely be assessed at $152,200 and owners would pay taxes on this amount.
The total amount Troy taxpayers will pay to the Monadnock Regional School District will rise about 31.8 percent, from $1,192,094 to $1,570,874.
Earl Wammack, the district’s business manager, has been unavailable for comment on the increases affecting the district’s seven towns, Fitzwilliam, Gilsum, Richmond, Roxbury, Sullivan, Swanzey and Troy. But the high percentage increase reflects the fact that every town in the district — with the exception of Roxbury — saw a dip last year in their local education taxes.
Katherine E.L. Chambers, the business manager at the time, attributed this, in part, to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unanticipated revenue, which helped to offset taxes.
While Monadnock district voters shot down the proposed 2008-09 operating budget in March, the default budget of $31,115,261 was $179,436 more than the default budget for the year before. Voters also approved several warrant articles — including a contract for support staff workers — and later approved a new teachers contract at a September special meeting.
Meanwhile, the total amount Troy taxpayers will contribute to Cheshire County rose 48.1 percent, from $242,465 to $359,198.
In October, Cheshire County Finance Director Sheryl A. Trombly told The Sentinel the county needed to raise about $5 million more in taxes this year.
Much of the increase, she said, is for the county’s new jail, which is being built off Route 101 in Keene.
Trombly told The Sentinel that this year Troy also saw an increase in its equalized valuation, which is a measure of the fair market value of commercial and residential properties.
The result?
Troy taxpayers are paying a bigger piece of an increasingly expensive county pie.
Troy also saw a more modest rise in the town portion of its tax rate.
This, board of selectmen Chairman Aaron K. Patt said, was due, in part, to two factors — bond payments for water and sewer upgrades and a $75,000 road repavement project voters approved at March’s town meeting.
Of every $29.03 Troy collects in taxes:
– $9.22 will go to the town government, up 46 cents, or about 5.3 percent, from last year’s rate of $8.76. This tax will raise $1,033,131.
– $14.02 will go to the Monadnock Regional School District, up $3.33, or 31.2 percent, from last year’s rate of $10.69. This tax will raise $1,570,874.
– $2.58 will go to the state education tax, down 27 cents, or about 9.5 percent, from last year’s rate of $2.85. This tax will raise $273,680.
– $3.21 will go to support Cheshire County government, up $1.04, or about 48 percent from last year’s rate of $2.17. This tax — which will raise $359,198 — will support county facilities such as Maplewood Nursing Home and the Cheshire County jail.
Troy tax bills were sent out Nov. 7 and are due Dec. 9, according to Satas.