State Report Card
Tax Capacity and Effort
View/download Tax
Capacity/Effort chart (PDF format, 16
KB)
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
The Tax Capacity/Effort chart uses the assessed property value
for the whole
state, divided by the statewide capacity and multiplied by 100. The
tax rate is
similarly aggregated, divided by the state tax rate and multiplied
by 100. This
shows how much a municipality can or could tax its local properties
compared
with how much it does tax the local properties. WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR
You notice that towns with large capacities tend to make the
smallest efforts.
Conversely, the towns with least capacity tend to make the largest
efforts. A good way of thinking about both tax-related charts
is to imagine what it would mean if the bars representing the
Effort – in the
latter chart – were all the same. Imagine moving that Effort bar to
100, which is
what the above mathematical manipulation does in order to plot the
districts on
either side of that equalized 100 mark. If the Effort were identical
between the
districts and the Capacity were as it is currently, the tax rates on
the other chart
would have to shift so that all municipalities, rich and poor were
making the same
financial effort relative to their capacity. (This is essentially
what Act 60 in
Vermont does by redistributing tax dollars collected from wealthier
communities
to poorer communities.) Also, bear in mind that even though the
state pays a large share of the poorer
districts’ school bill, the urbans’ tax rates, which are the highest
in the state,
serve to fill only some of the gap. The poorer districts still have
most of the
highest class sizes in the state, more buildings in states of
serious disrepair and
more students with the highest need for support services.
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