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Date: 11/22/2021
HADLEY – In a rare move, the Select Board voted on Nov. 17 to adopt a split tax rate for fiscal year 2022.
The town has functioned with a single tax rate between residents and commercial businesses but due to impacts economically from COVID-19, the town was looking to adjust to a split tax rate as a one-year plan.
At the conclusion of the tax classification hearing, which had been continued from the Select Board’s Nov. 3 meeting, the board voted 3-2 in favor of using a split rate. The goal is to use the split tax rate for one year to level out future tax bills for the town coming out of the economic damage from COVID-19 in 2020.
The meeting opened with members of the Finance Committee expressing some of their thoughts and recommendations on what the town should do with the tax rate. Finance Committee Chair Amy Fyden told the Select Board that the Finance Committee had voted 3-1 in their last meeting in recommending a single tax rate.
“I don’t have a business here, I just feel that my actual tax bill for a single rate will actually go up so it’ll cost me money, but I feel it’s the right thing to do,” Fyden said on keeping a single rate. “The commercial [businesses] on Route 9 pay more than their fair share. They pay a lot of taxes and are our bread and butter and are what keeps our tax rate in town as low as it is.”
Opponents of a split rate have often cited the hit commercial businesses could take with it and not wanting to impact a part of the town’s economy that helps keep its rate as low as it is already, but according to the Board of Assessors, this move will help level off taxes down the line and this is a one year only plan with no intention of keeping a split rate passed the next fiscal year.
“A misconception with a split rate is people are looking at is as raising commercial taxes. It’s not like that, it’s trying to level things off. It would be a reduction tax for most businesses. There are a few cases where some people will pay more, but most people say about 5 percent in reduction value [for commercial taxpayers],” said Dan Zdonek, principal assessor of the Board of Assessors, in the last Select Board meeting where he presented the case for a split rate.
Zdonek also recommended to the Select Board on behalf of the assessor to have no open space discount, no residential exemption and no small commercial exemption along with the split rate for FY22. These were also motioned and passed with the approval of a split tax rate for the next fiscal year.
Select Board member Joyce Chunglo voted against the split rate and felt it was not the right time for the town to adopt this tax rate as she felt with businesses already beginning to pick back up out of the heavily COVID[-19] impacted year that the split rate wouldn’t be doing as much saving as initially thought in terms of the towns tax rate down the line.
“Everything is inflating so we don’t wanna just keep going for it for everything to keep going up and we don’t wanna pass it on to the customer. Everyone is just starting to get back into being normal again as much as we can,” Chunglo said. “That [economic growth] doesn’t negate what they have endured over the past year. As we went through the COVID[-19] period, our businesses supported our fire, our police, our town. They are a part of our town and I don’t think splitting the tax rate is a good thing for us at this point, I think we should keep it at an even keel. People that I talk to – homeowners, businesspeople – everyone seems to want to be on the same level and not splitting the tax rate.”
Hadley Town Treasurer Linda Sanderson spoke briefly before the vote sharing some information on the positives of having a split rate for the upcoming year.
“Many of the businesses who are instinctively – as we all are instinctively in Hadley – against split rate, many of the businesses haven’t even checked to see what the impact would actually be on their taxes this year. And some of them have been very surprised recently to realize that they’re taking a position against something where they’re actually decreasing their taxes by tens of thousands of dollars,” Sanderson said. “What they will need to pay in taxes this coming year, that’s the inequity that we’re trying to deal with as households are paying more income. The intention is not to go after businesses to make up for anything, it’s to settle the inequities between the residences and the businesses until it equalizes out.”
Ultimately the Select Board voted in favor of the Board of Assessors recommendations and a split rate will be applied in FY22.
Mosquito Opt-Out
The Select Board moved swiftly to appoint the five residents who submitted letters of interest for the Mosquito Opt-Out Committee after requesting interested residents to reach out following the Special Town Meeting last month.
Bobbie Kamen, Shel Horowitz, Tony Lyn Morelli, Michelle Morris-Friedman and Michael Docter were the five interested residents appointed to the Mosquito Opt-Out Committee for the town. Kamen very much captured the goal of the committee and eagerness to figure this issue out in her letter of interest.
“I understand that it is important that we develop a timely, comprehensive, viable and workable alternative plan to mosquito spraying for 2022 as outlined by the [Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources]. I would work with the committee to seek local input and as well as knowledge and pertinent expertise in such areas as public health and agriculture and the experience of environmentalists, and state mosquito control specialist, legislators and others to be identified.”
This become a very much discussed topic at the Special Town Meeting when many residents were vocal in wanting to opt out and find their own plan for combating mosquitos. Many residents did not feel comfortable with the spraying of chemicals in the town to combat deadly mosquito viruses when there have been so few cases reported in the state (eight cases of West Nile, no EEE cases as of October), and the unknown impacts on the environment and people from these chemicals.
With the opt out now official, the town wanted to create a new plan catered to the concerns and voices of the people of Hadley. These five new members will lead that charge. The town is already still grandfathered into the program for 2022, but by next spring they can submit the application to be removed for the 2023 year and bring forth their own new program for combating arboviruses.
Also, Hadley has not sprayed any chemical for combating mosquitos in over 10 years, and the towns of Amherst, Northampton and Easthampton all opted out of the state program as well.
North Hadley Fire Substation Softball Fields Request
Park and Recreation Commissioner James Shea joined the Select Board meeting with a plan to build softball fields at the North Hadley Fire Sub-station.
The fields would be to the left of the station if you were facing the front of the building, and Shea came prepared mentioning that the Fire Department and surrounding community members in the area were all for the project.
Shea said he wants to put this field in for the Hadley softball team due to the fact they do not have the rights to their own field in the town.
“They have no place to call their own at this point. I feel that is not right,” Shea said. He also mentioned how difficult it is for softball teams to get good access for practices and games when having to share a field so often around town. They are often given the short end of the stick in that regard.
Shea also showed the Select Board blueprints of previous plans to put in a baseball and soccer field at the same location years ago. Those plans fell through, but this showed the Select Board that this would still be a reasonable location for the new fields.
Shea also told the Select Board he would not be asking the town for money, and he had a plan for securing the proper funds.
“I just need the land. We are trying to get it done a different way. I spoke to Rep. [Dan] Carey about grants for stuff like this and he said right now no, but he is trying to get it in budget for next year if permission is given (to have the land),” Shea said.
A motion was unanimously passed to approve the use of land next to the substation for new softball fields.