SAUGUS — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday set the tax rate for Fiscal Year 2023, and moved to lower rates on a recommendation from the Board of Assessors based on rising property values.
As a result, residents and businesses can expect to pay more in taxes. The average single-family tax bill is set to go up 4 percent — an additional $245.80; while the average tax bill for a commercial property is set to rise 3.6 percent — an increase of $1,548. Those increases are attributable to increased property values — for FY23, the average single-family home has an average assessed value of $565,057 and the average commercial property has an average assessed value of $1.907 million.
In Fiscal Year 2022, those values sat at $509,308 and $1.728 million for residential and commercial properties, respectively. As a result, the Selectmen moved forward with lowering the tax rate from 12.01 to 11.26 percent for residential properties and from 24.87 to 23.34 percent for commercial properties.
“The values go up, the rate goes down. The values go down, the rates go up. There’s a relationship there,” explained Town Manager Scott Crabtree.
The board also moved to shift the town’s tax burden from the residential class to the commercial, industrial, and personal property classes by 175 percent, the maximum burden shift allowed under state law, meaning commercial properties, like those on Route 1, will pay a higher share of the tax burden than residents.
Surrounding communities, like Lynnfield, Melrose, and Reading, have opted not to shift the burden as drastically. The tax rates for commercial properties in Saugus are higher than those of Lynnfield, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, and Wakefield, while the town’s residential tax rate sits closer to the middle of its neighbors — with Wakefield and Reading having a higher rate, and rates in Lynnfield, Melrose, and Stoneham falling below Saugus’.
In Fiscal Year 2022, Saugus had the lowest assessed single-family home value of neighboring communities and the lowest single-family tax bill.
“Our tax bills in Saugus are still extremely low compared to neighboring communities and we’re still a full-service community,” said board member Jeffrey Cicolini. “But on top of that, in addition to having raising value, the average tax bill in town only went up 4 percent and I think that’s really important.”
The town also saw $1.5 million worth of new growth in FY2023, the highest figure across the last five years, which Cicolini said “delayed the impact or the need for additional dollars.”
“It says a lot that given the fact that we built a phenomenal high school middle school complex and we continue to invest in town, the tax bill’s only going up, on average 4 percent,” he said. “We’re obviously doing something right.”
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
