Editor, 

This letter is in response to your July 24, 2019 article, “Biddeford tax rate down from earlier projections.”

It is wrong to mislead the public. This headline is written in a way to imply taxes in Biddeford are going down.  They are not. We are getting a 28 cent increase to the mil rate. The words were carefully crafted to imply it is a reduction. The headline could have been more honest by stating the facts:  “Biddeford tax rate to go up 28 cents over last year”.

If you dig into the numbers, the city revenue is up almost a million dollars WITHOUT the 28 cent increase. According to the article, there is over $22 million in new value in the city.  At about $20 mill rate, that produced $440,000 extra. Revenue sharing increased an extra $495,000.  Total additional revenue before any increase is $935,000.

So this is not good news. The city is not being frugal with our money, they are spending all the extra revenue that is coming in instead of using it to lower taxes AND they are increasing taxes.

Our roads are in terrible shape. City building have millions in deferred maintenance that never gets done. Our schools are in the bottom 25% in the state.  If we had a low tax rate to explain these facts away, that would be one thing, but we don’t.  Our tax rate is one of the highest in the state.  And it is going up 28 cents.

Kathy Russell

Biddeford

Editor’s note: The headline merely implied that the tax rate would be less than originally projected. That is a fact.