Middlebury — Recently a Middlebury reader of my weekly newspaper column emailed me to comment, in a sort of mini analysis, about why his taxes, in such a small Vermont town, are so high.
In response to my question to him, “What’s the 2012 tax rate in Middlebury?” the gentleman said he didn’t know.
It soon turned out that one of the town’s senior officers claimed he didn’t know what the tax rate was either. And another town official simply passed the buck to another. In both cases, the officials didn’t even offer to look up the answer.
Keeping all that in mind, the following data had to be drawn from a mix of public- and private-sector websites in order to answer our reader’s basic question.
On a real-estate website there’s a 2010 summary of total rates by Vermont town:
Middlebury came in at $2.17 for homesteads (there’s another, higher, rate, for non-residential), which made it to the top in Addison County. Middlebury is in the company of such top towns elsewhere as Stannard in Caledonia County, Braintree in Orange, Rutland City, Barre City, Montpelier City and Northfield Town in Washington, Athens and Brattleboro in Windham, and Springfield in Windsor.
The state average was $1.71, so Middlebury surpassed the standard by 127 percent. Next year, the total Middlebury homestead tax rate will be $2.52, a local newspaper website—www.addison-eagle.com—reports.
On the State of Vermont’s education website, there’s a 2011 ranking of school district spending by school type. Middlebury runs an elementary and sends to a union high school.
The data shows that Middlebury spent $13,452 per equalized pupil and came in at number 59.
By way of comparison, Bennington spent $9,495 and came in at number 254.
Both communities are above the state’s official Base Educational Support Amount in the high $8,000s, which is paid for with the state property tax of about $.86; one of the items within the total town tax of $2.17.
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