Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Fiscal Impact topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Analysis: Homestead exemption would shift tax burden; committee hears estimates showing large impacts for some homeowners
Summary
Staff projections shown to the committee indicate that a dwelling‑only exemption at higher rates would reduce grand list impact relative to phase‑in but shift tax burden toward nonexempt residential and commercial property; members pressed for targeted relief for heavily affected multifamily owners.
Catherine described numeric scenarios illustrating how different exemption levels would affect the grand list and individual taxpayers. Using a prototypical home that moved from a $200,000 assessment to $360,000 this year, she showed that a 35% dwelling exemption would approximately restore the homeowner's tax burden to near last year’s amount; conversely, some nonexempt residential properties could face much larger increases. "If we did a 35% exemption, which is the most we could do, but on the dwellings only, the impact of that on the grand list would be about 900,000,000, assuming that 80% of residential is owner occupied in Stratford," Catherine said.
Council members pressed where the shift would fall. William said residents in multifamily units that cannot apply "are going to pay more than they did in the phase in" and urged ways to address particular hardship cases. The mayor and staff explained that much of the offset in the models would come from higher taxable values in commercial and industrial categories that rose steeply in the revaluation, but members asked staff to identify options for the specific households that would face the largest percentage increases.
