By John Shelton

Plymouth and Washington County, I would like to take a moment to discuss the Republican-sponsored legislation that the Democratic Governor just signed putting a delay on property revaluations — I am not in favor of this legislation.

As you may know, we have a revaluation currently taking place that would appear to be affected by this legislation. What the new law does is freeze values until the 27-28 budget year. In reality, the new values are not in yet and would not have impacted the fiscal year tax rate that goes into effect July 1. 

Now, why is the revaluation important...

Our combined tax rate (Plymouth town tax plus Washington County tax) is $1.39 per $1,000 of property value. The rate is high compared to other counties. The reason it is so high is that we have the second-lowest property values in the state.

Revenue pays for street paving, policing, government expenses, sidewalk repair, and other services we as taxpayers expect. There is a formula to determine our budget and a big chunk of that is collected property tax. If the combined value of my property is $100,000, then I pay $139 in property tax every year. Add that to the amount paid by all property owners for that revenue source.

Suppose my house is revalued at $200,000. The cost of governance does not change drastically year to year unless there is a major capital expense, so the Town Council and County Commissioners will lower the effective tax rate to find the “REVENUE NEUTRAL” rate. That means that if my value doubles, the tax rate is cut in half. My taxes cut to .70 on the 1,000 and I pay $140. The town and county get the same revenue and I pay the same taxes (one dollar more just to have round numbers).

When big businesses that require a property purchase are looking to locate in an area, one of the things they look at, along with the cost of the purchase, is the tax rate. Our current tax rate is too high and is a discouraging factor. Remember, just because the tax value goes up does not mean the sale price goes up.

I hope that gives some clarity to this situation. There have been untruthful statements locally about Plymouth Town Council wanting to raise taxes. The budget we approved Monday night will be substantially lower than the budget from the 25-26 fiscal year. We still may have to dip into the reserve fund if folks don’t pay their taxes, but it assumes only an 86% collection rate, which is terribly low.

I can get into that on another column, but it is not because we are not trying.

John Shelton is a member of Plymouth Town Council.