Holliston maintains single tax rate of $15.40 Assessed values increase, tax rate decreases
By Theresa Knapp
At a public hearing on Nov. 14, the Holliston Select Board set a single tax rate of $15.40 for fiscal year 2023, pending approval from the Department of Revenue..
In a presentation by the Board of Assessors, Principal Assessor Kevin Rudden said the average house price in FY22 was $522,952 and this year is $604,062, up 5.5 percent. The average tax bill in FY22 was $9,088.91 and will increase to $9,302.56 in FY23, an increase of $213.65 (or 2.4 percent).
Rudden said a property’s assessed value is based on the style, age, condition, and location of a property.
He further explained, “If the valuation rises the way it did at 16 percent, and [town] spending didn’t dramatically increase which it did not, the rate correspondingly falls. Similarly, if values drop, the rate tends to go up. But at the end of the day, when you do the math, the people are paying their fair share so the average homeowner’s bill is going up [approximately] $300 - so that’s going up even though the rate is dropping.”
He said the “large drop” from the current FY22 tax rate of $17.38 per thousand is “primarily because you had large value increases…You can’t grow 16 percent and not have the rate drop unless you also went on a huge spending binge which this town doesn’t.”
In his presentation, Rudden noted that Holliston has 6,053 taxable parcels of which only 29 tax bills were abated. He reported the town’s total FY22 valuation was $3,039,553,733, and the values abated were $9,738,519.
At the meeting, the Select Board also voted the following relative to FY23:
• NOT adopt a dual tax rate
• NOT adopt the residential exemption
• NOT adopt the open space exemption
• NOT adopt the small commercial exemption
• Approve the excess levy capacity of $791,770 subject to DOR approval