County tax rate down; tax bills likely going up

By ARCHIE MOUNTAIN
NEWPORT — The Sullivan County Delegation will be asked to approve the county budget for Fiscal Year 2020 calling for expenditures of $33,008,168 when it meets at 1 p.m. Friday in Newport.

The meeting will be held in the Lou Thompson Room at Newport High School.

Changes being recommended by the Delegation’s Executive Finance Committee will keep the spending increase at 2.5 percent based on overall expenses and projected revenue.

To reach this level, the finance committee voted on Friday, June 21 to recommend an additional $674,969 in fund balance money be utilized on the revenue side of the budget.

Approximately $74,000 was also trimmed on the expense side including $62,000 tied to two projects that will be deferred while waiting to see if the nursing home renovation gains approval. The remaining $12,000 came from county employees changing insurance plans, according to County Manager Derek Ferland.

Those adjustments by the finance committee would lower the 2020 county tax rate to $2.73 per $1,000 of property valuation in Claremont and the 14 towns in Sullivan County, a drop of 11 cents from the 2019 tax rate of $2.84.

While the actual tax rate is down, county taxpayers will likely see increases in the amount of money that each community will be asked to contribute to cover county spending.

The projected tax rate is based on the total equalized valuation of all county property, a figure just released by the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration.

The new figured pegs the Sullivan County overall property value at $4.99 billion, up from the 2019 number of $4.6 billion.

When county property owners receive their new tax bills in the fall, the monetary bottom line is expected to increase even though the county tax rate is down. That’s where the 2.5 percent overall budget increase figures into the equation.

While the tax rate increase for each community is the same, the amount to be raised in dollars is expected to be different based on property valuations within those communities.

The population for Sullivan County is 43,742 based on the 2010 census.

Communities include Claremont, the only city, and Newport, Sunapee, Grantham, Charlestown, Lempster, Acworth, Plainfield, Goshen, Cornish, Washington, Springfield, Unity, Croydon and Langdon.