By Alice Waugh
At Saturday’s Town Meeting, residents approved a fiscal 2017 general government budget of $35.13 million, which will result in an decrease in the median property tax bill of about 0.7 percent, even after factoring in a $320,000 capital exclusion for buying DPW equipment.
The for fiscal 2017 is estimated at $13,204 based on a median property value of $939,500 in fiscal 2016, according to Finance Committee chair Peyton Marshall. It will be one of the lowest rates of increase in the past 12 years.
Tax bills for Lincoln residential property owners has risen an average of 4.5 percent since 1999, the second-lowest rate of increase among eight area towns. Although Lincoln has had the second-highest average annual tax bill during that time, it also had the cohort’s third-lowest tax rate in 2016.
Town Meeting also approved adding $284,084 to the town’s debt stabilization fund, which is drawn upon periodically to smooth the tax impact of significant capital funding, such as the expected school and community center projects, Marshall explained.
The excess from the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School appropriation will also added to the fund. The amount will not be determined until after the assessment but is estimated at $489,000, Marshall said.
Before Saturday, the fund’s total stood at $3.1 million, so the additions will bring it up to about $3.8 million. If about $3.4 million is applied to the town budget during a period when the tax burden from debt repayment from the future school building project is greatest, the maximum year-over-year increase in property tax bills would go down from 10% to 4.3%, Marshall said.