Tax Increase Is Still Too High

To the Editor:

Thanks for cutting the rate of our tax increase, but it’s still not enough. The current proposed tax increase is 3.7 percent. In 2006 the Consumer Price Index went up 3.2 percent but the average for the past five years was only 2.6 percent. Newtown’s taxes have increased more than twice that rate (5.6 percent) over the same period.  Here’s another way of thinking about it: the average home in Newtown is assessed at $263,000 and pays about $8,000 in taxes per year (including 2 autos). In just over six years at these current rates you would be paying around $12,000 per year and it would double in 13 years. New Milford just passed a 2.24 percent increase; Ridgefield’s was 2.64 percent; Bethel is asking for 1.4 percent and adding services! What’s wrong with this picture? Newtown needs more creative ways to raise the town’s revenue. The answer is not just simply to raise taxes and/or cut services.

Warren Hoppmeyer

23 Cobbler Mill Road, Sandy Hook                                May 16, 2007