Rochester’s Senior Property Tax Work-Off Program served as the Rochester Board of Selectmen’s largest focal point during their Monday, October 24, meeting. Facilitated by the Rochester Council on Aging, the program allows seniors to work off up to $750 of their real estate tax by working at the Council.
“We have fifteen people in the program right now,” said Selectmen Chairman Naida Parker. “Some of them put in a few hours here and there, and some even work over the max, knowing they won’t be paid for it.”
“How many people do we have in the program?” Selectman Richard Nunes asked. “How many can we have in total?”
“We can have up to twenty people in the program,” Parker explained. “So there’s still room for five more people to apply.”
Applicants, she said, must be age 62 and above, and their net household income cannot exceed $45,000 for the year. The current rate of pay is $8 per hour.
Parker reminded the room that Social Security benefits will only be increasing by .3% in 2017.
“For seniors, an extra $60 per year isn’t going to offset a property tax increase of $200,” she said. “We have people who almost can’t handle the tax already. Seniors are going to be leaving in higher numbers.”
Nunes said marketing the Senior Tax Work-Off Program might be helpful.
“If we can get it out there so that more people know about it, we could get more people working,” said Nunes.
Parker replied, “Maybe. But other states offer more allowances for senior property tax rebate – something we don’t do. You’re going to start seeing more houses for sale.”
In other matters, Town Administrator Suzanne Szyndlar gave an update on Rochester’s application for electric cars. “Right now, we’re waiting for the charging station to arrive,” she explained.
“Where’s the charging station going to go?” asked Nunes.
“Well, we’re thinking alongside the Town Hall itself,” Szyndlar said. “But we’re waiting to actually see what the station looks like, so we can find where it really fits.”
“Is the station going to be open to the public?” Nunes continued.
“Yes,” Szyndlar explained, “which is part of why we want to put it in a place that’s easy to get to.”
Szyndlar had also attended the earlier Special Town Meeting and came to the selectmen with a new idea for future meetings.
“I’d noticed at the last town meeting that we were using some terms that regular people might not understand,” she said. “I’d like to spend a little time at each meeting explaining some of these terms. Like ‘free cash’ – it’s a term we use in the financial boards, but it’s not free and it’s not cash; so we should explain exactly what it is, how we get it, and how we use it.”
“I always think people don’t really understand that we’re scraping by at the end of every season with new demands from different sectors,” said Nunes. “We should explain how the budget is planned, what goes into it, how the school district affects it; there are a lot of things that people may not have the full scope of.”
The next Rochester Board of Selectmen meeting will be at 7:00 pm on Monday, November 14, in the Rochester Town Hall.
By Jean Perry