First, some totals: 

Real estate accounts are broken down as follows:

• 3,247 residential
• 110 commercial
• 44 industrial
• 362 vacant land
• 391 use assessment (farm, forest or open space)
• 5 apartments

 

There are 10,510 motor vehicle accounts on the October 1, 2010 Grand List.  Additionally, there were 1,470 vehicles on the 2009 supplemental grand list.

 

Next, some questions answered:

 

1.    What is the MEAN (or AVERAGE)[1] assessed value of a home in Somers?

 

$211,718; yearly tax at current mill rate (21.12) = $4,471.48

 

2.    What is the MEDIAN assessed value of a home in Somers?

 

$195,800; yearly tax at current mill rate (21.12) = $4,135.30

 

3.    How many property owners in Somers are currently on special payment plans because of inability to pay their twice-annual lump sums?

 

The tax collector currently has just 18 signed payment plans with taxpayers.  This represents just 0.0043 of the total number of tax accounts in Somers.

 

4.    How many property owners in Somers currently have received abatements/reductions in the amount of tax they owe because of inability to pay the full amount?

 

There are

• 137 elderly who receive State and Town benefits based on their income—their taxes are lowered by credit from the Town and the State.  Credits total $173,692 in foregone revenue to Somers, and $77,318 in foregone revenue to State.  The 137 represents 0.033 of total tax accounts.
• 514 accounts receiving veterans’ benefits (0.124 of total tax accounts).
• 13 receiving a blind exemption (0.0031 of total tax accounts)
• 25 receiving an exemption for totally disabled (0.0060 of total tax accounts).
• total value of taxes foregone in veterans, blind and disabled = $114,271
• totalling all four exemptions above (689), a total of 0.166 tax accounts in Somers receive some form of exemption.

 

5.    How many property owners in Somers are currently delinquent on their tax payments?

 

Real estate taxes:  Currently, 132 homeowners are delinquent on their real estate tax payments (0.032 of total tax accounts).  At the current mill rate, this represents $273,331 in Town revenue.  Ms. Doyker says this is mostly farmers and builders, and that the delinquencies are typically paid off by ~May in a given year.

 

Motor vehicle taxes:  Currently, about 3,000 MV tax accounts are delinquent!  Ms. Doyker says many people wait to pay their MV taxes until the two-year term of their registration is up, and they need a stamped-paid receipt to re-register.  She said that more than $1.5 million in MV taxes are due each year in Somers, but that she collects “far less than that.”

 

6.         How many acres of land are taxable in Somers?

 

This was absolutely the most shocking data point for me.  The Assessor, Pat Juda, told me that, of the ~15,000 acres of land in Somers, ~12,000 acres are either tax-exempt or not taxed at their full value.  That is 80 percent of land in Somers.  This shows the extent to which our Town MUST rely on the property taxes paid by homeowners for the lion’s share of our revenue.  The 12,000 exempt or reduced-tax acres are either:

 

• land trust:  valued at market value and then exempt the tax bill completely
• open space:  valued at $1,665 per acre and assessed at 70% of that figure
• excess acreage (you buy five acres, build a house on the plot—the buildable portion is taxed at the full rate of 70% of assessed value; but any land that is not fully “useful—“ rocky, wet, hilly, etc.—receives a reduced assessment:  starts at a value of $5,000 per acre and can be reduced due to slope, wetlands, land locked, etc.
• farm:  valued per acre as follows:

 

·       Tillable A = $1,665

·       Tillable B = $1,110

·       Tillable C = $665

·       Tillable D = $445

·       Orchard = $1,300

·       Unmanaged Pasture = $220

·       Swamp/ledge/scrub = $40

·       Forest/Woodland = $190

 

 

When to Use Mean v. Median

 

• The mean is what we call an average, one of several that summarize the typical value of a set of data. The mean is the grand total divided by the number of data points.
• The median is the middle value in a sample sorted into ascending order.  If the sample contains an even number of values, the median is defined as the mean of the middle two.
• Is it better to use the mean or the median?  To know which you should use, you must know how your data is distributed.  The mean is the one to use with symmetrically distributed data; otherwise, use the median.  If you follow this rule, you will get a more accurate reflection of an “average” value.
• The mean is calculated by adding together all the values, and then dividing them by the number of values you have.  As long as the data is symmetrically distributed (that is, if when you plot them on a frequency chart you get a nice symmetrical shape) this is fine—but the mean can still be thrown off by a few extreme values, and if the data is not symmetrical (it is skewed), it can be downright misleading.
• Example:  A discussion of “average” incomes in a population:  Since more people earn low salaries than high ones, because a fairly large proportion of the population works part-time, the data will not be symmetrically distributed.  Therefore the mean is not the best “average” to use in this case.  The median, on the other hand, really is the middle value:  50% of values are above it, and 50% below it.  So when the data is not symmetrical, this is the form of “average” that gives a better idea of any general tendency in the data.