Westbrook Taxes

Also in this week's American Journal is a very interesting supplement that "dissect[ed] the property tax dollar" in Westbrook. According to Mayor Chuluda, this the breakdown--in percentages--of the expenditure of the $51.5 million dollars of tax money in Westbrook:

1. School: 52.6%
2. Public Safety: 14.5% (note: Public Safety includes police, fire, and rescue.)
3. Public Services: 8% (note: Public Services includes streets and sidewalks, parks, cemeteries, trees, and storm drain maintenance.)
4. Administration: 7.3% (note: Administration includes City Clerk, City Council, Office of the Mayor, elections, finance, assessor, legal, human resources, economic development, planning, engineering, code enforcement, and technology.)
5. Debt: 6.6%
6. County Tax: 3.1%
7. Trash Collection: 2.4%
8. Recreation: 1.6%
9. Library: 1.3%
10. Transit: 0.96%
11. Health: 0.83%
12. Miscellaneous: .81%

Finally, it should be noted that $22.2 million of the $51.5 million dollars of Westbrook's taxes are raised via state aid, auto excise taxes, and fees. The remaining $29.4 million is generated from the property tax. The mil rate, or the property tax rate, is $15.43 per $1,000 of valuation.

- John C.L. Morgan

P.S. BruChu also included a breakdown of "Your tax bill," though he didn't actually break down each individual American Journal readers' bills (duh!). Instead, he (or his staff) broke down the average property tax bill of $3,095.25. Anyway, to see how much of your property tax bill is actually going toward school, public safety, public services, etc., divide your total tax bill by the respective percentages shown above.

York Street sure is clever that way.