The vote took place during a public classification hearing Monday on how Williamstown, with its median household income of over $95,000, would distribute its tax levy among taxable property owners. The proposal by select board member Stephanie Boyd to adopt the commonwealth's residential tax exemption would end the town’s history of applying a single, flat tax rate across all property owners.
“Granting the exemption increases the residential tax rate, as it shifts the tax burden within the entire residential class only," Assessor Chris Lamarre explained. "It shifts it away from the lower valued owner-occupied dwellings to dwellings valued at greater than the breakeven, multifamily properties, apartment buildings, vacant land, and domicile property owners.”
Lamarre said the board of assessors favored keeping the single tax rate over the RTE.
“If you think about it, our tax policy is really a reflection of our community goals. And I've heard our community say over and over again that we need to be more affordable, we need to be more equitable and diverse, and I assume that means economic diversity. And even if the flat tax is a good thing, that it's a fair approach, we in fact have indications that it's not," said Boyd. “Wealthier homeowners across the country and in Williamstown pay a much smaller percentage of their income on property tax, and a much smaller percentage of their overall wealth is tied up in real estate. And how do we even know that we have a flat tax rate? There are national and county data that clearly indicate lower value properties are being over assessed and higher value properties are being under assessed, and even preliminary local analysis, Williamstown local, indicates that over the past five years, properties in the lowest decile were over assessed compared to higher value properties, resulting in those homes paying a higher tax rate. And those are preliminary data, right? I am not advocating that we take that fact, but that we need to dig into that further to make sure that is in fact the case.”
Boyd, noting the pitched controversy around the RTE, spoke to critics of the plan in the community who labeled the undertaking as divisive.
“I'd like to suggest that investigating where and what types of inequities might exist in town is not the cause of divisiveness," she said. "It merely exposes where we have work to do. I don't feel that I've been given any kind of mandate because I was elected to this board. I know I work for all of you. But my work will continue to involve analysis, shining light on issues, asking as many questions as I can, and listening to you. As a board member, I've been asked to give an up or down vote on the residential tax exemption. In order to do that responsibly, we have to work to not only understand the implication of the residential tax exemption, but the impact of the status quo.”
Boyd’s colleagues on the select board, like Andy Hogeland, were unconvinced.
“Although it does help people who need help, it helps a lot of people who don't need help, it doesn't help people who do need help, it puts upward pressure on rents, because people who are landlords don't get the benefit of this," he said. "So, if our goal is to help people who need help, I think we need to do something different than this.”
“In all transparency, I am a landlord," said resident Carin DeMayo-Wall, who opposes the RTE. "I try very hard to not increase the taxes in a way that will keep my teachers and single moms from having to move. Very hard, right? But if you do this to me, I cannot not pass that on. Right? I'm already seen exorbitant increases in insurance and other expenses. So, this is not going to end well for the people that I've tried to take in and treat fairly.”
Resident Wendy Penner said the RTE proposal was generating a long overdue conversation in Williamstown, and that she supported using the tool to address inequity in the community.
“I moved here in 1991," she said. "What I've seen is a proliferation of large second homes, retirement homes, some of which I personally, to my personal sensibility, I feel are very unwelcome. I think they're huge resource hogs. But I digress. Some people view those kinds of homes as the best thing that could happen for our town because of the amount of revenue that they generate for our town. Other people think differently. Some people feel like they're driving up property value, and they're making it harder for other people to afford to live here.”
She noted how deeply the concept of acknowledging inequity in the town’s property tax system had rattled some homeowners.
“The reason our property tax structure is inequitable, according to the published research as I understand it, is because some people are paying a much greater percentage of their wealth, their income in property taxes than other people are," said Penner. "So, whether all homes are selling for about their assessed value or not, there's still, this is still an inequitable tax structure. The alarmism- I mean, I thought some people were going to cry here because you know, they might have to pay a couple hundred dollars more in tax.”
Acknowledging that the Williamstown community wasn’t ready to change its status quo, Boyd reiterated that her efforts were in the interest of making housing more affordable and to more equitably distribute taxation.
“Our community is changing, whether we think it or not," she said. "Property taxes are the oldest taxes in the world, they have been changing for since the Middle Ages. And property tax used to be a real measure of your wealth. It was like, did you have a field that you grow food in, did you have some cows and some pigs, and when the tax assessor would come around, you hide your pigs over in the neighbor's property. So, you know, there was a lot going on then. So, we need to question whether it makes sense for where we are today.”
Ultimately, the select board unanimously voted to adopt a single tax rate for the coming year.
