Plenty of people complain about their property taxes.
But in Winchester, a new group of residents is taking its complaints a step further. They call themselves Winchester Tax Rebellion and they're looking to take their issue statewide. The Keene Sentinel's Dan Gearino reports.
(minivan, background chatter sound) (winch-sound1)
Driving along a country road by their house in Winchester, John and Chris Frado can see for 30 miles.
Cfrado2: We’re looking down at the Pioneer Valley of Northfield, Mass., so we’re not even looking at NH because we’re just one mile from the Massachusetts.
They pay dearly for this view.
(Cfrado2, cont’d) I won’t debate the fact that it’s a nice view. Is it worth 109,000 per acre? No.
Chris works out of the house running a cross-country skiing association.
John, who is on disability after back injury, manages two nearby rental properties.
After a tax revaluation this winter, the assessed value of their house nearly doubled to $250,000.
They say taxes could force them to sell.
John says their finances have reached a breaking point.
JFrado1: We built the house to live and die in and have something to leave to our grandchildren. And this year, when we pay our taxes – well first of all, we couldn’t pay $3,000 of it – and we paid two years out of savings just to pay one tax bill.
Plenty of other Winchester residents are angry about the revaluation.
And they’re angry about the state’s tax system that places a heavy burden on local property taxes.
They’ve formed a new organization called Winchester Tax Rebellion.
The group seeks full state funding for education and better federal funding of federal mandates.
Last month, they hosted a meeting that drew several hundred residents.
GUESTS included elected officials like Senate President Tom Eaton of Keene, who represents Winchester.
(meeting chatter sound) (winch-sound3)
Six members of the group met in the Frados living room on a recent Sunday.
Local resident Michael Harmon attended, but he wan't there because he too got a large tax bill.
MichaelHarmon: The reason I’m involved with this group is because I’m unsatisfied and unhappy with the way the state of New Hampshire raises money to fund education for our students. It seems as though the property owners are the ones who are carrying the load here. I would prefer to see the load shared among a larger group of people somehow, be it with an income tax or a sales tax or whatever.
That would seem to be a political can of worms in the Granite State.
But Billie Jo Knoll says it doesn’t need to be that way.
BillieJoKnoll: We don’t mention Republican versus Democrat or Democrat versus Republican or whatever it might be. It’s about the children’s education and what’s fair for both the property taxpayers -- who fund education in the state -- and what’s fair for our children’s education.
Winchester schools have had a tough few years.
Last year, the local Thayer High School lost its accreditation.
Around the same time, residents voted to close the school and start sending students to Keene High School.
In March, voters slashed $500,000 from the school budget.
School leaders say the cut will mean a bare-bones education for the grades that remain in town.
John Frado:
Jfrado2: The bottom line is we’re out of money. We want to support our schools. We haven’t been able to come up with enough money to move our town forward in years.
Republican State Rep. Edwin Smith of Hinsdale says he sympathizes with the people paying high taxes. His district includes Winchester.
However, he notes that the state roughly doubled its school aid to Winchester between 1999 and 2000.
The change was the result of the Claremont decision and the statewide property tax.
AND Smith says many costs are related to greater services.
He says schools and town governments do much more than they used to.
Oh, and about that income-tax idea.
He says it’s not a political reality.
Smith2: The people in Cheshire County, the people in Sullivan County, are probably the biggest proponents of a change in the taxes, and more likely an income tax than a sales tax. But when you get to the rest of the state, the North Country, they don’t want to even talk about it; when you get to the other side of the state, they’re not interested in it either. I think we can see that from the last election when Sen. Fernald ran. He only got 40 percent of the vote.
The gubernatorial candidate Fernald even lost in Winchester.
The Winchester group is talking about banding together with other towns angry about school funding.
But it remains to be seen if the group can stick together to deal with concerns beyond the Winchester town line.
John Frado thinks the group has staying power.
Jfrado3: It’s a broad based issue, but it’s pretty much the western and northern towns against the wealth in the southeast. We’ve used the slogan of sorts that NH has become a prison for the low and moderate income and it’s become a sanctuary for the well-to-do and the wealthy.
The group plans to march on Concord on May 22. They hope it will be the start of a larger grass-roots protest movement.
For NHPR news, this is Dan Gearino.
