The Ridgefield bond explained article (January 16, 2019) claims that the tax impact would be only “9 cents more… or $36 more annually on a $400,000 home.”
I find that estimate to be suspicious and exceedingly low. I live in a roughly $400,000 home and was shocked when my 2018 tax bill was increased by $361 as a result of the previous school bond approved in 2017. The 2017 bond was for $77,965,000, the current bond is for $77,000,000. How then can the current bond, nearly identical in value and amortization, be sold as having only a $36 increase, when an actual tax bill increase for the previous bond was 10 times that amount? A state funded cap on the maintenance and operations levy should not be used to manipulate the visibility of this bond’s actual tax impact.
As voters being asked to approve another school bond which will again increase our tax burden substantially, we should be provided with accurate estimates of this bond’s cost.
