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Please note that Village Municipal Property Taxes exist because Village residents have voted for them.  Village Taxes are not "unfair" per se, nor are they redundant with Town Municipal Property Taxes.  The Village Budget is approved by registered Village voters at the Village Annual Meeting in April. The Town Budget is approved by registered Town voters at the Town Annual Meeting in March.


Village residents have expressed that they don't get value from Town Taxes -- which they also pay as dual citizens of both municipalities -- or that non-Village residents benefit freely from Village-funded services. Depending on where you look and how narrowly you focus, examples of both may be found. 
 

This disparity in taxation is a major issue that Separate-and-Share fairly addresses by making taxation more appropriate for both the Village and Town-outside-the-Village (TOV) districts. See SAS vs Merger.

The Village General Fund Budget -- which is the shared cost detailed in the charts below -- is not the only expense that the TOV would share in, under a merged-budget scenario. Other ripe-to-be-shared expenses are detailed in the "Costs Ahead" box here.

If you take the current $3.6 million Village General Fund Budget and charge it to all Essex residents, this would be the annual effect, if done all at once:

Anticipated Tax Shift
TaxShift.jpg

Instead of shifting the Village General Tax at once, below are the incremental yearly tax increases, if spread out over time to lessen the shock:

Options for Spreading the Tax Shift into the future
TaxDelays.jpg
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