What is a Levy?

The property tax levy is the revenue a community can raise through real and personal property taxes.

What is a Levy Ceiling? What is a Levy Limit?

What is a Levy Ceiling?

What is a Levy Limit?

Proposition 2 1/2 places constraints on the amount of the levy raised by a city or town and on how much the levy can

be increased from year to year.

A levy limit is a restriction on the amount of property taxes a community can levy. Proposition 2 1/2 established two

types of levy limits:

First, a community cannot levy more than 2.5 percent of the total full and fair cash value of all taxable real and personal property in the community. In this primer we will refer to the full and fair cash value limit as the levy ceiling.

Second, a community’s levy is also constrained in that it can only increase by a certain amount from year to year.

We will refer to the maximum amount a community can levy in a given year as the levy limit. The levy limit will

always be below, or at most, equal to the levy ceiling. The levy limit may not exceed the levy ceiling.

How is a Levy Limit Calculated?

A levy limit for each community is calculated annually by the Department of Revenue. It is important to note that a

community’s levy limit is based on the previous year’s levy limit and not on the previous year’s actual levy.

 State Senator Peter J. Durant

11h ·

This morning I met on the common in West Brookfield with constituents who are passionate about saving the West Brookfield Elementary School. The school is in danger of closing, sending pupils to Warren, the other town in the Quaboag Regional School District.

The town is facing two override votes to try to preserve town services and save the school. They are just one of many communities in this dire situation.

What many folks didn't know was that this week, in Boston, House Republicans stood up and forced a roll call vote in an effort to fully fund Rural School Aid which could have helped communities like West Brookfield.

That amendment would have raised the funding to $60 million which is what the state’s own commission said it should be. But Democrats killed it.

Democrats didn’t debate it. They didn’t even offer an alternative.

They killed it.

Every single Democrat in the House stood up and voted against the thing these rural communities need most and then they went home.

I and my Republican colleagues in the Senate have plans to try to right this wrong when we begin work on our budget next week.

We plan to file and support amendments to fund Rural School Aid and increase Local Aid by cutting programs like free calls for inmates. We will propose increasing funding for Regional School Transportation and tapping the interest in the state’s so-called rainy day fund - because across the state it’s pouring on our small communities and they are drowning.

This morning, these hearty folks looked at the details of the House vote in surprise and asked over and over, what can we do to get these Democrats on our side?

 If you do one thing, search/google 603 CMR 41.00 and then read 41.05 and learn about regional school budgeting. It provides information to aid in what you vote for and how you vote.

41.05: Regional School District Budgets

(1) Initial Adoption by the School Committee.

(a) The regional school committee shall propose a budget containing all proposed operating expenditures, transportation expenditures, capital expenditures, and debt service payments to be paid from general revenues of the regional school district. The budget shall be classified into such line-items as the regional school committee shall determine, provided that such line-items shall be consistent with but need not be to the same level of detail as the chart of accounts required for the end of year reporting of expenditures pursuant to 603 CMR 10.03(3).

Initial Action by the Local Appropriating Authorities.

(a) The budget as adopted by the regional school committee and the member's assessment as certified by the treasurer of the regional school district shall be placed before each member's local appropriating authority for its consideration. Notwithstanding provisions in the regional agreement to the contrary, approval of the budget shall require an affirmative vote of the local appropriating authorities of two-thirds of the members. A vote by the local appropriating authority to appropriate the member's assessment shall constitute approval of the regional school district's budget.

If a local appropriating authority votes to appropriate a lower amount than the assessment as certified by the treasurer of the regional school district, such vote shall not constitute approval of the budget as submitted by the regional school committee. The regional school committee may consider such votes when it reconsiders the budget pursuant to 603 CMR 41.05(3).

Reconsideration of Rejected Budgets.

(a) If the budget is not approved in accordance with 603 CMR 41.05(2), the regional school committee shall have 30 days from the date of disapproval to reconsider, amend, and adopt a revised budget. With the approval of the Commissioner, this 30-day period may be extended an additional 15 days. Where the local appropriating authority is town meeting and the annual town meeting is dissolved prior to voting on the budget, the budget shall be deemed disapproved by that member as of the date of such dissolution.

(b) The revised budget adopted by the regional school committee and the assessments corresponding to such budget may be less than, equal to, or greater than the amounts in the previously adopted budget.

In a regional school district comprised of two members, if the revised budget is not approved by the local appropriating authorities of both members, the regional school committee shall again reconsider, amend, and adopt a revised budget and shall convene a district-wide meeting in accordance with M.G.L. c. 71, § 16B, at which the revised budget shall be placed before all voters eligible to vote at said meeting. If a majority of voters at this district-wide meeting votes to approve the revised budget, such vote shall constitute approval. If a majority of voters at this district-wide meeting votes to approve a greater or lesser amount for the budget, such amount shall be placed before the regional school committee. If the regional school committee by a two-thirds vote of the full committee ratifies such amount, it shall constitute approval. If the regional school committee rejects such amount, it shall again reconsider, amend, and adopt a revised budget and shall reconvene a district-wide meeting pursuant to the provisions of this section 603 CMR 41.05(3)(f).

Establishment of Budgets by the Commissioner.

(a) If the annual budget for a regional school district has not been approved by July 1, the superintendent of schools shall notify the Commissioner, and the Commissioner shall establish an interim monthly budget for the regional school district. The interim monthly budget shall be one-twelfth of the regional school district's budget for the prior fiscal year or such higher amount as the Commissioner may determine. The interim monthly budget shall remain in effect until a budget is approved pursuant to 603 CMR 41.05(3) or December 1, whichever comes earlier.

 

 

 https://www.templetonma.gov/1625/Proposition-25-Override-Information

 Templeton Override votes this century, beginning 2000.

March 23, 2000, special Town election.

Shall the Town of Templeton be allowed to assess an additional $565,164.00 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purpose of funding the Narragansett Regional School District operating budget for the Fiscal Year beginning July 1st, 2000?

Passed YES 10122 votes / NO 709 votes

June 11, 2007, special Town election.

. Shall the Town of Templeton be allowed to assess an additional $735,700.00 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purpose of funding the operating budget of the Narragansett Regional School District as assessed by the Narragansett Regional School District for the fiscal year beginning July first, two thousand seven?

PASSED - YES 541 NO 515

October 15, 2013, special Town election.

“Shall the Town of Templeton be allowed to assess an additional $620,000.00 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purpose of funding the general operations of the regional schools and municipal government for the fiscal year beginning July first, two thousand and thirteen?

PASSED YES 961 NO 746

October 2013 special town meeting.

To appropriate monies from the above override vote.

To see if the town will vote to assess an additional $620,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purposes of funding the regional schools and municipal government for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2013. Submitted by the Board of Selectmen. On a motion duly made and seconded the town voted to that Five Hundred Fifty Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Nine Dollars ($550,459.00) be raised and appropriated from the 2014 Tax levy and other general revenues of the town (as per the passage of the October 15 ballot question for an override of the limitations of the Proposition Two and One half, so called , ch.54, sc. 29) to be added to the appropriation voted pursuant to Article 27 of the Annual Town Meeting to pay the Town of Templeton’s share of the Narragansett Regional School District budget for Fiscal Year 2014, thus increasing the total FY14 appropriation from $4,430,615.00 to a new total of $4,981,074.00 dollars and that Sixty Nine Thousand, Five Hundred Forty One Dollars, ($69,541.00) be raised and appropriated from the 2014 Tax Levy and other general revenues of the town (as per passage of the October 15 ballot question for an override of the limitations of Proposition Two and One half, so called, ch.54, sc. 29) to be added to the appropriation voted pursuant to Article 9 of the Annual Town Meeting for town charges,

Passed.

May 2018, annual Town elections.

Town general fund override $420,246.00

PASSED yes 722 NO 434

May 2018 annual Town meeting

I move to raise and appropriate the sum of Four Hundred Seventy Thousand Two Hundred Forty Six Dollars and No Cents, ($470,246.00), , for supplemental appropriations to the FY 2019 Operating Budget for the following departments: Fire/EMS $290,740 Police $23,000 Insurance & Benefits $133,890 Highway $15,000 Snow & Ice $7,616.

PASSED.