Your Take: Is 2.6 Percent An Affordable Tax Hike in Avon?

Last week, the Avon Board of Finance unanimously recommended the $81.76 million budget presented as requested.

That might be the first time the finance board has done so without making adjustments at its budget workshop since Avon started having referendums in 1999, according to finance board Chairman Thomas Harrison.

If passed at referendum on May 15, it will require a 2.6 percent mill rate, or tax rate, increase. 

“That is absolutely the lowest tax rate increase that has been presented at the public hearing," Harrison previously said.

In past years, the finance board has "reduced the 'presented' tax rate increase," recommending lower percentages, such as "2.45 percent in each of the last two years," Harrison wrote in an email to Patch. 

The lowest tax rate percentage increase the finance board has recommended since referendums started was 1.65 percent in 2009, he said, the height of the economic recession nationwide. 

The highest increase the finance board has ever recommended was 9.28 percent in 2000. 

In the budget proposal before Avon voters in this year's May referendum, Harrison said that "a property assessed at the 25th percentile will see an increase of $139, at the 50th percentile of $179, and at the 75th percentile of $251." 

Is the proposed budget affordable to residents with the required 2.6 percent tax rate increase? What do you think? Tell us in the comments!