Community backlash delays Brunswick’s tax due date
The Brunswick Town Council voted Monday night to delay the property tax due date in response to community backlash.
After a heated discussion with about 60 community members, 18 of whom made public comments, the town council unanimously voted to delay the property tax commitment date from Sept. 1 to Oct. 1, with the first half of taxes due on Nov. 15 and the second half due on May 15, 2024.
With higher property taxes valued by inflated market prices leftover from the pandemic, several residents said at the meeting that they won’t be able to afford to live in Brunswick anymore. With some residents facing at least $1,000 in tax increases due by Sept. 1, they were worried they simply won’t be able to pay.
Brunswick residents received letters in the mail this month notifying them that their properties had been assessed and detailing what their property tax bills would look like for this year. A small number of people’s taxes went down, but most residents saw increases — some by double, triple or even five times their previous tax rate.
Several of the residents at the meeting said they received this letter without warning.
This new assessment is in response to several previous actions by the Brunswick town council. This year’s budget increased, and since the budget is funded by excise and property taxes, taxes had to go up, said Council Chair James Mason.
This goes hand-in-hand with the council implementing a new assessment protocol, which is assessing and changing property taxes to make sure they are equitable across all classes of property in compliance with Maine law, said Brunswick Assessor Taylor Burns.
The discussion Monday night began with a presentation by Burns, who detailed the reasons why the assessment had to be done and why many people’s property taxes increased. In order to stay in a constitutional range of tax equity across different types of property, assessments had to be done and property taxes had to change, he said.
But the Brunswick residents who attended the meeting weren’t convinced. Some alleged the presentation’s purpose was to put people to sleep, while others said it simply didn’t explain anything at all.
For instance, the assessments were done in a time in which property values were at a high due to the effects of COVID-19. Many of the attendees at the meeting said basing their homes’ values on one year of high market prices doesn’t accurately reflect the long-term value of the property.
And, most of the people expected their property taxes to increase 7.5 percent instead of the great variations in increases that many received in the mail.
Jim Coffin, a Brunswick resident and a lobsterman who owns a working waterfront home, said that, under law, his home should be assessed as its use of working waterfront rather than the market value of the house. Coffin said the average assessment for a one acre working waterfront property should be $100,000-$250,000. He said in 2022, the assessor valued his property at around $443,000.
The letter he received recently said his property was worth $1,042,000. There were gasps from the crowd in the chamber.
Coffin compared his situation to commercial properties in Brunswick whose assessments have not gone up since the 1990s.
“To be truly fair, this wealthy fair market value should be averaged with what poor people are willing to pay for your property,” Coffin said. “What’s fair for Peter is fair for Paul.”
Several of the people who spoke during public comment said with the new property taxes, they could no longer afford to live in Brunswick.
Caitlin D’Amour, another Brunswick resident and a social worker, talked about how the raise in property taxes would affect people with low incomes.
She said the stress of living from paycheck to paycheck with the addition of increased property taxes causes long-term health effects, and adding on an expense makes living in Brunswick no longer viable for many.
D’Amour said the increased property taxes are doing nothing to help the housing crisis in the area.
“I’m an LCSW [licensed clinical social worker],” D’Amour said. “I’ve worked with families who have been displaced from the [military] base, as the property management companies determined they would no longer rent and would rather sell their homes for prices that many of the families I work with could not afford. They have to move out of Brunswick. They were part of our community.”
The outcry from the community was effective.
Councilors said they regretted not being more open and communicative with the community. Some, like Councilor at Large Dan Ankeles, even called for throwing out the assessment altogether.
“This discussion has put me beyond my breaking point,” Ankeles said. “I can’t see how the constitution or state law envisioned accommodating some of the most regressive tax gut punches I have ever seen. We got our letter, and after tonight, I feel like we got off easy.”
In the end, the council unanimously voted to delay the commitment date for the taxes in the interest of discussing future options at the Aug. 21 meeting and public hearing.
Jules Walkup is a Report for America corps member. Additional support for this reporting is provided by BDN readers.