You gotta love the front page story in the Grunter headed “Wolfeboro 2012 tax rate up 3.6%”. Ho-hum, so taxes are up, so what’s new? The story goes on to completely obfuscate then spin the news with arbitrary factoids: It’s not as bad as this, better than that, one of the lowest, etc. etc. After you cut through all of the obfuscation and misleading comparisons you have no idea where we stand but after all, if the newspaper thinks things are great, must be OK. But here’s a fact that they didn’t mention in their coverage:
In the three years since 2009, the town tax rate has increase more than 39%.
I don’t know why the newspaper feels compelled to hide the figures and present a slanted view of the facts. Why not just publish the news in a clear and concise way and let the public decide if it’s good news or bad news. It’s dumbed down and sugar-coated, and it’s an insult to responsible citizens who have a right to the truth.
So here are the figures, straight from the state’s website, for anybody that wants to draw their own conclusions.
Total | Town | Local | State | Total | ||
Year | Valuation | Rate | School | Ed | County | Rate |
2009 | $2,051,930,195 | 3.38 | 3.96 | 2.23 | 1.04 | 10.61 |
2010 | $2,048,930,072 | 3.93 | 3.79 | 2.33 | 0,99 | 11.04 |
2011 | $2,048,479,200 | 4.46 | 4.39 | 2.34 | 1.01 | 12.2 |
2012 | $2,043,252,747 | 4.71 | 4.48 | 2.4 | 1.05 | 12.64 |