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Health & Fitness

An idea I would propose that might give help us avoid an increase this year.

   Good evening friends and fellow citizens. I did a little research today to see what ways we could speed the process up to give us some immediate relief to the tax issue. I reached out to the Dept Of Revenue about the legality of attempting a two tier commercial property tax system. So far they are still researching this issue for me. I'm hoping to get an answer on this soon. What was brought back to me was an idea for a small business exemption. This was brought to me by John Duffy who is Dedham's Director of Assessing. At first this didn't seem to fill the purpose I was looking to achieve, but then I thought.  This was discussed before in Dedham but never implemented. Why couldn't we vote to raise the commercial property tax rate, but use this exemption to protect our small businesses and keep the smaller businesses at the current rate of 34.73 per $1,000 of value? (I'd have to see if there is a process)
   If we increased the Commercial rate by say $1.25 to $1.50 per $1,000 on properties that let's say for argument sake are valued at 3 million or higher(I haven't looked at every commercial property yet this is just a hypothetical) we may be able to build enough revenue to actually cover that 2.88% and be able to keep the residential rate at the current 16.08 for this coming fiscal year. 
   I seriously doubt legacy place would close over this and I'm sure the other large businesses could manage this. This would buy us the time to look at the budget more closely. Create that transparency we really need and perhaps we do find a way to do a small exemption next fiscal year.
   The current board is on board at least to try to stop the bleeding as in a recent story in wicked local they are looking to delay hiring the FTE for the Endicott Estate:

http://belmont.wickedlocal.com/article/20140312/NEWS/140319239/11436/NEWS

   One FTE not being hired won't completely solve the tax issue but it is a step in the right direction. At least it's a step towards examining spending. I applaud the effort they are trying to make. 
   More or less this me again trying to think outside the box to try to create a solution or at least in this case a temporary one to give us time to review our budget and where we are spending and why. I'm going to continue researching solutions that could help us. I want a better situation for all of us that also keeps the town operating without any adverse affect on core services. There is still research to be done, but this could be an avenue we consider exploring. Thank you.

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