Board of Education adopts 2008-09 Tax Levy

On August 12, the Shenendehowa Board of Education approved a tax levy of $94,942,833. This is the exact amount that was projected when the community authorized the 2008-09 spending plan last May.

At that time, the district projected a 3.69% increase in the true value tax rate (average for all six towns). The actual impact in the true value tax rate is a decrease of -0.27%.

What does this mean for the individual towns?

The distribution of the $95 million tax levy between the towns in the district is determined by equalization rates (the mechanism developed by the state that puts each town on an equal basis to apportion the levy across all towns in the district).

Clifton Park --will see an increase in its tax rate of 3.42% over last year. The 2008 equalization rates in our largest town, Clifton Park, reflect that assessments have not kept pace with the market or true values. This is largely due to the fact that the town has not reassessed in many years. Therefore, the tax rate for Clifton Park will increase more than the other towns.

 Halfmoon -- although the town of Halfmoon has also not been reassessed in many years, there has been significant growth in the overall assessment value offsetting the final tax rate decrease of -0.27%.

Malta --tax rates for Malta will decrease significantly (-22.21%) because its equalization rates are now at 100% due to their recent reassessment.

Waterford, Ballston and Stillwater -- will see their taxes increase by 1.24%, 0.88%  and 7.85% respectively. Only small portions of these three towns fall within the school district boundaries.

Overall Property Growth in District

Growth in total property assessments across all six towns increased by 4.6% more than projected during the budget planning process. The increase in assessments was primarily in Halfmoon, Malta and Ballston. As anticipated, assessment growth in Clifton Park was lower (0.2%) than usual.  This is one of the lowest periods of assessment growth for the town of Clifton Park in many years. Halfmoon’s assessment growth increased by 3%.  Malta’s growth was up by 41% from last year is partly due to the fact that the Town reassessed. Ballston was up by 15.2%.

Listed below are the tax rates per $1,000 of assessed value