Pondering the Town’s Financial Future

By Matt Riiska

It is budget time again, and for the next few months the selectmen and the Board of Finance will be drafting the budget for fiscal year 2025-26. There are many components of the budget, but the main items are the General Government, Botelle School, and Regional 7. We have little say in the Botelle School budget, which needs to meet certain state minimum budget requirements, and we have less input in the Regional 7 budget. The General Government budget, consisting of all of the town departments, is the only part of our entire budget that we can really scrutinize.

Our Assessor has completed the recent revaluation and has provided the updated grand list. The grand list includes the values of all personal property, real estate, and automobiles. This figure is $364,540,965, an increase of 29 percent from the previous year. This does not mean your taxes will increase 29 percent. As we all know, the cost of living has gone up, so we will be working very hard to keep any increase as low as possible. Your taxes are calculated by establishing the mil rate. The mil rate is the overall budget divided by the grand list divided by 1,000. Properties taxes are calculated by multiplying the mil rate times the assessed value of your property divided by 1,000.

I am often asked what we can do to have no tax increase or even lower taxes. This is not easy. Although we are fortunate to live in a very beautiful area, we also need to understand that much of our land is in restricted, meaning no building. In many cases we have properties that are tax exempt. What can we do? We can work with businesses that would either like to expand their existing business or assist individuals to start new. We can also look for individuals who would like to build new homes on the little available buildable land that we have. The Haystack Woods development, which will be completed in 2026, will certainly help. 

One of the other components of having a vibrant community is having a sufficient number of residents who can be part of our emergency services, our town government and our community service organizations. At a recent selectmen’s meeting we discussed the enrollment at Botelle School and what we can do to increase it. Certainly more available housing would help. This could be through the addition of new homes, the availability of affordable apartments, or the increase of accessory dwelling units. We all need to work together to come up with ways to make Norfolk a more affordable place to live.

I will write more on the budget process next month. Stay tuned.