NORTON at a glance
Our TOwn
2024 Levy Limit w/o Debt & Capital Exclusions - 43.8 million
2024 Town Budget Total - 71.45 million
Percent of budget that comes from Property Taxes - 61%
how do we fund our town government?
Funding of the services that we rely on every day, including all of our municipal services, police, fire, schools, roads, etc. comes from a variety of sources, including money from the state, but predominantly comes from our property taxes. ( 61% for FY 2023)
The additional amount received from the state year over year is usually 1% or less each year. In the past 10 years, the State Revenue has only increased by 10% total (only $1.5 million). Over the same period, inflation has risen by 30.6%.
Source: CPI Inflation calculator
Source: Town Report (2013), Town Report (2023)
how do increasing costs affect our ability to provide services?
Like household finances where we have seen inflation impacting everything from insurance rates to utility prices, the Town experiences those same increases. For example, insurance went up 5.7% this past year.
And even though home prices have risen in recent years, the total amount of taxes that the town can raise (levy) without an override cannot increase by more than 2.5% from one year to the next, even if all of the above costs increase by far more than this. This is in part what is squeezing the ability for the town to provide the same services for us than it did in the past.