By now all of you have received your Proposed Property Tax Statement from the county in which you own property. For those properties within the Hawley Public School boundaries you have probably noticed an increase in the school portion of your taxes. Let me try to explain the reason(s) for the proposed increases:

1. Did your property value increase? This value is set by the county and not the School District so we have no control over this variable.
2. We are seeing an increase in our Debt Service Levy – this levy is set in place to make our yearly payments on our outstanding building bonds. Within these calculations the state uses an average across the state for delinquent property taxes. Within the Hawley School District, we have a much lower percentage of delinquent property taxes than the state average so over the course of a few years our Debt Service account grows to a level that the state determines is too high so they lower our Debt Service Levy. Over a period of a few years our Debt Service account falls to a level the state determines is too low and they increase our levy to bring the balance back to an acceptable level. We ride this small roller-coaster effect without any local control and we happen to be in a year in which the state has determined that we need to increase this fund balance and thus the increase in the Debt Service portion of the levy.
3. We are losing about 6% of state aid on our board approved, local optional and equity formulas because our tax base is growing faster than our student enrollment. This means for our operating referendum and the local optional revenue we are paying more locally than we did last year. We are projecting this to move to about 2% next year.
4. We will be lowering one area within our levy that will save a property valued at 325,000 approximately $47 or 3.25% under the proposed tax statement.