When house values go up, the tax rate goes down, and so it goes in Marion as Marion Assessor Brad Eames reported to the Board of Selectmen on December 11 that property values overall have increased by 9.4 percent.
The last time property values were assessed was three years ago.
The current fiscal year 2018 tax rate of $11.45 will decrease to $11.03 for FY2019, but that does not mean that taxpayers will see a decrease in their tax bill.
The average $300,000 home will pay $3,309 in taxes this year, and a business like the Marion General Store assessed at $574,500 will pay $6,336.
Eames also suggested the selectmen keep a single tax rate, charging the same tax rate to both residential and commercial properties, as opposed to a split tax rate that would shift some of the tax burden onto commercial and industrial businesses.
“The Board of Assessors strongly recommends that you adopt a single tax rate rather than a split tax rate,” Eames said. “The Town of Marion is so heavily residential that the impact of a SR on residential [taxpayers]…is really minimal, but the impact on commercial properties is enormous.”
Property in Marion is 92.73 percent residential.
The board approved the single tax rate and the recommended tax rate of $11.03.
Also during the meeting, representatives from CDM Smith gave a presentation titled “Assessing the Threats from Climate Change to Marion’s Vulnerable Wastewater Pumping Infrastructure,” giving a brief overview of the five phases of the study which began that day with the first task during a data collection visit to eight wastewater pumping stations in Marion.
CDM Smith Mitigation Engineer Frannie Bui walked the board and about a dozen others in attendance through the results of Wareham’s results of its own study done last year as a primer for what Marion can expect from its own study report. With the data collected from Bui and five other specialist engineers that day, it is already clear that some sites are in imminent danger of damage as sea levels rise, as early as 2030, and even some sites today showed proof of their vulnerability with damage evident and needing immediate attention.
“Three of our pumping stations can be damaged by some sort of wave or wave activity,” said Town Planner Gil Hilario, which is unusually high compared to neighboring towns, he added. “Some of them were already moist and wet. … The electrical manholes already needed to be pumped today. We discovered it unexpectedly and had to pump it out today.”
CDM Smith already recommends all equipment be replaced and mechanical components raised by an additional 1.7 feet by 2025 but, over at the Oakdale Avenue pumping station, the equipment that is at 9 feet above sea level could already be underwater during a storm surge as it is situated inside a velocity zone.
When that equipment is replaced, the mechanical components will need to be elevated by another 17 feet.
“There are controls that are out and exposed, and those controls would certainly be flooded or inundated,” said Bui. “We have a lot of chewing that we have to do at each of these locations.”
The target is for the study to be completed and a report ready in June 2019. There will be several public meetings and updates along the way, as well as several attempts to engage the public in data collection and input.
“We are not alone in this type of analysis,” said Bui. “There are certainly many other communities up and down the eastern seaboard that have to deal with this.”
The next meeting of the Marion Board of Selectmen is scheduled for December 18 at 7:00 pm at the Marion Town House.
Marion Board of Selectmen
By Jean Perry