By Bob Hertz
An average homeowner in Acton currently pays roughly 18% of their family income to real estate taxes (based on the average house value). Renters have the taxes passed through to them. You soon will be asked to pay substantially more.
The current average family tax bill is almost $14,000 per year.
Acton is within the very top of comparable communities in their taxes as a percent of your family earnings.
Our leadership is requesting an override for fiscal 2025 – the amount is still in flux.
FinCom has put their stake in the ground at an override of $4 million, an increase of slightly under $1,000 in taxes per average household for fiscal 2025 – a roughly 7% increase over the current year.
If the administration gets all they are forecasting, the override will approximate $11 million – a roughly $1900 increase in the average tax bill and a 13.5% increase over the current year. Now that’s a blow, and it is after using over $3 million in reserves. Our leaders will tell you they are simply forecasting level budgets and a few surprises they have been saddled with. Budgets always have room for cuts – don’t be duped.
If you are concerned by the tax increase we face, please contact your town and school boards and FinCom. Tell them what you think. Above all, please turn out for the municipal election (sometime in April-May) and vote down an unreasonable override.
You have control over the level of taxation in Acton. To voice it, however, you must show up at the polls. Our leaders will do their best to get their people out – horse-and-pony shows, slick videos, letters from “concerned” groups, and so on. Those above 15 years of age may be eligible to vote in Acton municipal elections. Expect the schools to try their best to get the students out.
For your vote to count, it will take many people concerned by the size of the increases to offset the poll-packing attempt by our leadership. Urge your friends and neighbors to vote.
The administration will tell you the world will end, as we know it, if they do not get all they suggest. Municipal will suggest cuts in areas we don’t like. Schools will complain of drastic cuts in staffing or worse. Don’t buy it.
When we receive surprises, as families, we must reduce other costs or tap into savings. This might be one such surprise. Corporations often are forced to look at cuts to adjust for disappointments. We should expect no less from our leadership. The world will not end for Acton or its residents.
Acton leadership has room to cut budgets. They may not get all they would like, but if they follow or slightly increase FinCom guidance they will get what they need.
Our leadership always budgets the new year based on budgets of the prior year. Those prior year budgets are generally greater than what is spent for that year. It makes sense. They don’t want to come back a second time for money. The point is, there is always wiggle room between the budgets and actual expenditures. This year, as an example, school leadership have elected to absorb health costs which should be passed on to the school employees, roughly $400K worth. This was not planned, but the budget process allows for such expenditures. Perhaps there will be less wiggle room for the coming year.
Please get out to vote in this year’s municipal election.
What happens after Acton votes for the school override? Does Boxboro get to vote on school budget?Sorry but this is very confusing for.me not knowing process with multiple towns and multiple spending/overrides with town override and school overide. Is there any document detailing this. I am home bound and cannot go to meetings but will go to public meetings to vote. Thank You
Response to anonymous:
The process for approving the override, budgets and school assessments will be in three steps. First, on April 30 Acton voters will vote up or down on the override – only requires majority so if you are against the override, by all means vote. The second step will be for Acton town meeting to vote Budgets and Assessments on May 6 and the third step will be for Boxborough to vote their budget and A/B assessment on May 13. The level of budgeted expenses, to a large extent, will be controlled by the vote on the override. You can bet, if the override passes, the budgets will spend it all. You can vote by mail for the April 30 ballot (see instructions below).
The override stands at $6.6 million at present and hopefully will be reduced somewhat as the process continues. Acton Leadership Group is working to develop an override number they think will pass a majority election. I assume they will land on a number within the next few weeks. If you look at the ALG webpage on the Town of Acton website, you will see both the A and B budgets – not the easiest reading.
If the override passes, Acton will present what they call their A budget to members of the Acton town meeting. The budget will be broken into several articles to be voted. The A budget is the least disruptive they believe will get a passing vote. Boxborough does not need an override and so will present the A budget A/B assessment plus their own municipal and capital budgets to town meeting members for an up or down vote. If either vote fails, the process gets complicated.
If the override fails, the leadership group will move to a B budget which has more cuts and pain attached. You will see members of the leadership speaking to anyone who will listen in an attempt to get the override passed. They will talk about the dire straights they and the towns will be in. They will talk about possible decreases in home values. They will be in full salesperson mode. We must balance our budgets, and sometimes the outcome is unpleasant. Companies must balance their expenses to the revenues they receive. If they do not, they eventually will disappear. We should ask no less of our local government, and we should be wary of the sales pitch.
If the override passes at $6.6 million the tax for the average property will increase by $1,333 or 9.5% to $15,325. Acton will collect approximately $122 Million in property and other local taxes for fiscal 2025. Acton is an expensive place to live – one of the most expensive Massachusetts communities at almost 18% of per capita income. I am retired. Whatever number is settled upon will be more than the $1,000 increase in my annual social security benefit. I can afford the override, but I am not sure everyone can. Here is hoping you will get a ballot and make your voice heard.
The following is from the Acton town clerk webpage on the Acton Town page:
April 30, 2024 Annual Town Election
Voter Registration Deadline – April 19, 2024
Vote By Mail Application Deadline – April 23, 2024
To clarify, passage requires a majority of the people WHO VOTE, not a majority of the voters. Important distinction.
Thank You. I will vote for you and for me. We all need to live within our means. No scare tactics. No override.
Two dificulties I have with the general arguements offered. We tend to forget the “boards” asking for what appears to be too much more money are elected by US, the complainers and acceptors. I read the greatest cost in the school budget is personnel and related expenses. The employees did not dictate their financial renumeration. We gave in to an illegal union and chose an amount with which all tended to agree. The second is measuring Acton costs with town x is a fools errand. Spending more or less than any other community should mean nothing. What we spend compared with our agreed upon needs is, in my opinion, the only measurement of any value whatsoever.
In response to the statement “If the average household income in Acton is about $175K, and the average property tax (for a single family) is about $14K, that’s about 8% of household income, not 18%” I would submit that the average (mean) household income is not the proper income number to use; but rather the median income. The mean can be highly skewed by some super-high earners (or conversely by the unemployed) so it’s of questionable value. Does anyone have the median income data, either per person or per household?
Sorry for this late comment, but I came across this earlier today. It provides an apples-to-apples comparison of tax burden as a percentage of home value & per capita income for all cities & towns in the Commonwealth. Acton has the 20th highest tax burden in the state. Of the 20 highest taxed communities, Acton has the 2nd highest tax as a percentage of home value and the 3rd highest tax burden as a percentage of per capita income. Our per capita income is less than half the average of the Top 20; our average home value is less than 60% of the average of the Top 20.
You can download this table and do all the slicing and dicing you want. I cannot come up with a combination of various peer communities in which Acton is not among the most heavily burdened by property taxes.
https://dlsgateway.dor.state.ma.us/reports/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=AverageSingleTaxBill.SingleFamTaxBill_wRange
To all respondents, my apology for mislabeling the 18% income per capita (IPC). My point is Acton is an expensive town to live in. Based on the Fiscal 2025 wish list, it is about to become much more expensive. Leadership initially proposed funding a few surprises and a “level-services” budget, which I assume means annualizing costs of a few days ago – no layoffs (people costs are the largest budget item by far) and no significant reduction in other costs. Our leaders will tell you the full amount, at present $11M or roughly $,1900 of additional property tax per household, is necessary – and not receiving it will spell doom. FinCom, thus far, has suggests $4M, or $1,000 as the most they believe could pass a ballot.
We will hear that school costs of $18K per pupil are lower than many communities. We will hear that the town pays less than other communities for safety, DPW and so on. Excepting for Minuteman Trade, those statements are generally true. The trade school wants $32K per student, a cost greater than any other trade school I reviewed. If costs are generally lower, why is the tax bill for Acton as a percent IPC very high? The answers are simple. We have a very small commercial base with whom to share our costs and we have a fairly dense population due to not investing enough in open space in the 50’s and 60’s. The result is higher property tax per household. Historically Acton has managed their spending using a more-for-less philosophy. As we move away from that approach, we are bound to see increases. Additionally, Acton is limited to a roughly 3% increased assessment per year, made difficult by rising costs. Residents also are impacted by and must contend with the ravages of inflation.
Leadership will suggest the hardships to come, emphasizing those departments or structures which will hurt the taxpayer/parent most. Don’t buy it. There are many choices and much money at stake. Many in Acton will face hardship, even if taxes go up by the FinCom suggestion of $1,000. My net Social Security check is going up a total of $996 for 2025. Hoped to keep some of it. To respondent, Sui Generis, I am not alone in my concern. Not every Acton family earns $175K or more. We all will see the impact either in property tax or rent. Leadership increasingly passes regulations which have real non-tax costs – another burden for Acton residents.
Acton spends funds for items which may not be necessities and certainly don’t meet the more-for-less tenet. Without an in-depth knowledge of expenditures, here are a few. I guess there are many more.
What purpose does a sanctuary town label provide? There was some cost to setting it up. Did it have a bearing on immigrants being assigned to Acton? Having a reasonable number of immigrants entering the country is healthy. What the Biden administration has done is irresponsible. Because of their recklessness, immigrants are being housed wherever possible. Acton will see added expense which could be large. I hope our high-paid politicians will push the current administration to step up to the costs for which they are accountable.
Town leadership has decided “clean energy” is a priority. They not only follow trends, but in several cases opt to be a leader – always more expensive. Everyone wants to see improved living conditions. With China, India and others being allowed to continue polluting, what Acton does will not have much effect. Thermal heat pumps, building codes, battery-fueled vehicles and attendant chargers, natural gas bans, and the latest assault on lawn equipment all add cost – some substantial.
Both town and schools maintain a DEI function while many companies and several universities are transferring DEI tasks to other departments in a cost-savings effort. Because labor costs are, by far, the largest portion of school and town expenditures, any significant effort to reduce the override must, unfortunately, include staff/teacher reductions. Additionally, leadership must look at all legal, consulting, public relationship, and other contracts or agreement to assure they absolutely are necessary. As an example, school leadership spent significant legal resources to delay delivery of documents requested under the Freedom-of-Information laws. As I understand it, Massachusetts sided with the requestor and demanded compliance several times. Why not simply become transparent and save the fees?
School leadership replaced, at a large cost, the Colonial moniker, long a staple of Acton. Although I understand the sensitivity associated with slavery, true colonizers within our town existed generations ago. Warranted or not, leadership split the town apart over distresses of a very small group of people – but then division seems to be a norm these days. School leadership also, at some expense, introduced various books into its libraries. U.S. Senator Kennedy read excerpts from at least one of these books and was scolded for uttering such words in a Senate Hearing. Interestingly, the language, not OK for the U.S. Senate chambers is OK for Acton students. Did their content justify the cost, whatever it was?
Our transportation system is expensive and, excepting COA vans, very lightly used. The system is not meeting any reasonable expectation. Another cost we could live without.
As residents we must offset negative surprises with trade-offs or savings. Companies must do the same. That often is a painful exercise. Acton, forever more, will have a choice of doing more-with-less or overtaxing its residents. I hope and trust our leaders will choose the former. If the override is unreasonable, please vote no and ask your friends and neighbors to do the same.
Has anyone did a check on how many “New Positions” have been created under the current TM? How about the finance department, the “head” of the finance department is also the HR director and what finance background dose she have??
As a senior working full time; my wife is also a senior and works part-time, I cannot afford a 7% increase in ANYTHING. Unfortunately basic line item needs like groceries, electricity, and fuel oil have increased substantially over the past two years and CANNOT be reduced by willfulness by consumers. One must eat, have power and heat. Fortunately clothing costs may be reduced by purchasing used clothes at various outlets. In this spirit and discipline of reducing costs, FinCom should examine the entire proposed annual town budget with a careful eye for waste and prioritize what is NECESSARY from what is NICE TO HAVE, just as we taxpayers do!
Hi Bob, Just a couple of comments on your statistics. The 7% of “family income” spent on “property tax” that you present in your reply to Guido tracks with the calculation I did using averages I found online. The DOR stat is per capita which can’t be equated with family income as you’ve done in the first sentence. If the average household income in Acton is about $175K, and the average property tax (for a single family) is about $14K, that’s about 8% of household income, not 18%. Also, the increase in health insurance DOES need to be factored into the budget going forward because the HIT voted for a 22.8% rate increase mid-year. Finally, I encourage you to have a look at the most recent available PAFR (Popular Annual Financial Report) for Acton, especially the charts that compare Acton’s spending per capita and average tax bill to “communities located in Middlesex County with an Open Town Meeting form of government and a population between 18,000 and 30,000.” They show that “Acton ranks in a normal range of the comparison group for per capita spending,” “Acton’s average single family tax bill ranks in the median of the comparison group,” and “Acton’s 10-year annual budget growth tax rate (2.81%) is lower than most of the comparable communities.” You can find the report here – https://www.actonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/8552/FY22-Popular-Annual-Financial-Report
Please do not take Acton’s increase in property values for granted. Acton already has the highest tax rate of the all neighboring good school towns with similar tax levies. If the rate keeps increasing then at some point it will negatively impact home values, especially when interest rates drop and people want out of the high taxes. Then we get into a vicious cycle where the property tax rate has to be increased further to compensate for the decline in home values, which will just cause home values to decline further. It’s simply not a sustainable approach.
Regarding school expenses, four of Acton’s elementary schools are in two builds. Shouldn’t we combine these to just two schools and reduce duplicated functions?
Control of budget to make end meet is management responsibility. It does not make sense to have student count decrease with school budget grow. This is simple example of mismanagement. Why did town add assistant manager and a DEI function to both schools and town?
Guido, thank you for your thoughts. I am not familiar enough with Acton operations to make suggestions and, having been around budget processes for most of my working life, am a firm believer that budgets must be prepared by those who will oversee operations for the coming year – the Town manager and A/B superintendent and their managers. They must buy into whatever plans and budgets are prepared.
If I come off as negative, it is because the gap in expectation is large at present. Hopefully it will be narrowed. I trust the FinCom to do their job of diligence. If in the end result, however, the budgets and their tax increase implications are simply not acceptable to the residents of Acton, they have a voice. They will need to vote in numbers to offset what will be a vigorous turn-out-the-vote exercise by town and school leadership. I don’t disagree with your suggestions. I might go a bit further on the little information I have. We have a transit system which is largely unused. We just added an assistant town manager and not long ago added a DEI function to both schools and towns. Many companies and some universities are reducing or eliminating their DEI functions and spreading the tasks among other departments. Would this work here? Minuteman Tech. budgets are out of control – something must be done. We have many capital projects under way – not all bonded or fully paid for by a third party. Should they be delayed? As you stated, student counts are decreasing. At the same time A/B budgets continue to grow. The majority of the insurance issue is a cash flow issue which should not enter the budget process since the money will come back to Acton at a later date. Any expenses related to the immigrants recently moved into Acton by the Biden administration should be separately accounted for. Our well-paid politicians should be pressing those who caused the problem to pay for it. Marthas Vinyard shipped most of the immigrants who landed there to Joint Base Cape Cod where the administration will be forced to accept the cost burden.
On a separate issue, I am using income per capita as a proxy for family income because I cannot find current information on a family income basis. Income per capita is displayed by the Mass DOR – Div. of Local Services for fiscal 2024 and for all 351 separate communities of Massachusetts. The 18% I state in my opening paragraph is the ratio of average property taxes to average income per capita. It is high compared to most surrounding and peer group municipalities. I would guess a ratio of average property tax to average family income is around 7%. However one looks at it, Acton is an expensive town to live in – not the worst by a long shot, but expensive. This is the result of a number of decisions made by Acton leadership in years gone by. We now live with the consequences. Police, Fire and DPW expenditures run about middle of the pack and are well managed. The town side of the process is not the issue. The issue resides in the schools where the bulk of the money is spent. There was a time when all Acton leadership did more with less. Somehow, we seem to be getting away from that concept.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
Bob Hertz
How can we trust the SB? D. Martin promised a report on the quality and quantity of RACISM infecting Acton as prerequisite to implementing a DEI plan, but dithered not a moment tossing that promise aside and implementing his DEI infrastructure without any report.. The changes included, as I recall, personnel and guidance on how best to choose vendors in ways that don’t rely on choosing the least costly of the qualified..
The SC, is long on summary but short on data to understand what HIT actions were unfortunate and exacerbated the increase demand, and what in personnel driver was so hidden that it took until now for the $4,000,000 rupture to be seen.
$9,900,000 is quite a bit.
I would remind anyone who cites inflation that the real value of the savings of the retired was pummeled by this ogre, inflation.
Maybe it’s time to have Acton and Boxborough become one town?
It seems the opening paragraph is inaccruate.
“An average homeowner in Acton currently pays roughly 18% of their family income to real estate taxes…The current average family tax bill is almost $14,000 per year.”
Doing the math, the average “family” income would be a little less than $78K.
Bob’s comment above then cites the 18% is average income PER CAPITA. If $14k is the assumed average property tax bill for a home in Acton, then his % property tax per household is true, BUT “per capita” does not make a household. The average household contains 2.6 people in Acton.
Assuming that 2.6 people per household is a mix of single and multiple income earners under one roof, the opening paragraph’s statistics grossly misrepresent the facts. Will you improve the accuracy of the opening paragraph, Bob?
I’m not sure if the median income number is before or after taxes. If it’s before taxes, then the family property tax is 11-13% of take home income.
But I think the point here is that Acton homeowners have been paying a higher percentage in property taxes compared to neighboring towns.
Nobody likes tax increases. Seems you have a negative bias on this, though. How about making some constructive suggestions for where savings could be made? I read that the student population is down – maybe teacher cuts are needed? How about outsourcing/consultants – health insurance for town employees is expensive. Different tax rates for business and residential real estate? The list goes on…