Steve: Don't scare people. The new rate is 173, not 147 - that was the old rate, and the one that would have nailed residential tax payers.
You are right about our hitting the wall, but the reasons are state as well as local - there was no margin for the town to lower its tax rate significantly because the spending amount set in April depended in part on state money that was reasonably expected but never came, and set us off scrambling in the fall. At the Alliance for Educational Equity, we are working for an equitable share of state and federal funding for Chapter 70, SPED, and charter school funding. But it is interesting that another issue that has come forward is one of timeliness - a need to hold the state legislature's feet to the fire and make it produce a budget in a timely manner that towns and cities can count on when setting their own budgets. Rene
