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Medford school tax levy to drop by about $2 million this year

NEWS EDITOR

Taxpayers in the Medford School District will see about a 27% drop in the school portion of their property tax bills this December.

At Monday’s school board meeting, board members gave final approval to a $33.4 million school budget. Finance director Audra Brooks reported the budget came in balanced after receiving state aid reports based on student population earlier this month.

According to Brooks the major cause of the decrease is due to the district paying off a substantial portion of its existing debt from the previous referendum project last spring. The district had kept the tax rate steady in recent years in order to pay off the debt early and save on interest expense. The debt had originally been scheduled to be paid off in 2026.

In addition to saving on interest and loan payments, local taxpayers get a boost because the state aid formula is based in part on the amount the district spends in a given year. As a result of paying down the debt significantly, the district received more state funds than previously anticipated. Brooks said this went directly to reducing taxes for residents. “October 15 was like Christmas morning for me,” Brooks said of the day she received the state aid amounts.

The overall district tax levy is about $5.9 million which is down about $2 million or 25.4% from last year’s tax levy. With a slight growth in equalized value in the district, the final tax rate is $6.07 per $1,000 of equalized value. This works out to be a about a $226 savings on a home valued at $100,000, a drop of 27.9%.

The final tax rate is actually lower than what was projected at the annual meeting held in August. At that meeting, Brooks had projected a preliminary rate of about $6.24 per $1,000 of equalized value. Brooks noted that the drop puts Medford at one of the lowest tax rates in the state.

According to the Department of Public Instruction, the statewide average tax rate for all school districts last year was $9.18 per $1,000 of equalized value. The tax rate adopted by the school board on Monday is more than $3 per $1,000 below that average.

“That is exciting news for taxpayers,” Brooks said.