Business
Biggest Factors in Upcoming Tax Rates and Spending: Finance Board Chairman Jon Zagrodzky’s State of the Town Address
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Without notes, but with a set of 30 slides, Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky told the Representative Town Meeting how he and his board are looking at the town’s financial prospects and what factors matter most in how budgets and taxes will be decided on in the next several years. State decisions on whether to impose teacher pensions would have a huge impact on town taxes, Zagrodzky said, as would any significant rises in health insurance costs — and he provided specific numbers showing how a roughly typical homeowner’s taxes would rise. Barring some huge events like those — which town officials have no direct control over, he said he and the Board of Finance thought the town likely should have no more than a 3 percent increase in spending this year. Seth Morton, the moderator of the Representative Town Meeting called Zagrodzky’s speech “probably the finest presentation I’ve ever seen here. […] I don’t editorialize during this, normally, but I think that deserves some mention.”