The Rochester Board of Selectmen met March 16 to hear the recommendation from the Board of Assessors on the Town’s tax classification, which selectmen unanimously approved.
The Town will leave the tax rate unified among the different property types, as it is now. According to Board of Assessors Chairman John Mello, the Town is broken into 4 percent personal property, 4 percent commercial, and 4 percent industrial, with the remaining 88 percent residential.
“Given that … the distribution amongst the different classes of property has not changed significantly, the assessors recommend that we continue with the unified tax rate,” Mello said. “If we continue with the unified tax rate, our excess levy capacity would be $4,378.34.”
An excess levy capacity is the amount the Town can levy (impose a tax), but it has chosen not to change. As the Town is operating at a level within less than 1 percent of the levy, the excess capacity is low.
“So we’re running at about 99.99999 percent of total levy as we have for the past six, seven or eight years,” said Mello.
According to Mello, the overall value of the Town for fiscal year 2015 is $813,572,400, an increase of 2.4 percent over fiscal year 2014.
The Town’s tax rate will increase by 1.6 percent to $14.07 per thousand dollars in home value.
“We’re starting to reflect the improvement of the appreciation of value we’re seeing in the real estate market,” Mello said.
The tax rate will be signed and submitted to the State quickly, according to the Board of Assessors.
The Board of Selectmen thanked Mello for his 22 years of service as an assessor. Mello is stepping down from his position this year.
“I’m sure the people who come after will do as good a job if not a better job,” Mello said.
Selectman Naida Parker told Mello, “You’re leaving very big shoes.”
Town Administrator Michael McCue delivered an update on the progress of the budget proceedings, saying that they are meetings almost every day and progress is underway.
Also during his report, McCue submitted a plan to have the Town officially recognize Arbor Day as a holiday as he mentioned he would in the March 9 meeting.
The Town is also putting together a memorandum of understanding, which details the transfer of a recycling truck from Rochester to Marion. The two towns originally shared the truck, but with ABC Disposal’s recent overhaul of recycling collection duties in Rochester, the truck serves no purpose for Rochester.
The board briefly discussed Governor Charlie Baker’s proposal, which would allow towns to split the costs related to snow and ice over two fiscal years. According to McCue, the cost for snow and ice management in Rochester topped $100,000 this year.
McCue also submitted to the board a draft of a letter to the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District (SRPEDD) to discuss the prospect of extending Route 58 to cover County Road in Rochester.
The board read a Notice of Intent to sell for residential use an area of 116 acres along Snipatuit Road in Rochester. The board put the matter on hold, as there had been no response from the Rochester Land Trust.
The board then read correspondence regarding the Comcast Xfinity subscriber fee for 2014. The fee is $498, an amount that was determined by multiplying the town’s 996 subscribers by the per-subscriber fee of $0.50.
The next meeting of the Rochester Board of Selectmen is scheduled for March 23 at 6:30 pm at the Rochester Town Hall.
By Andrew Roiter
