GREENFIELD — City Council has approved lowering the tax rate for fiscal year 2025, so property owners can expect a rate of $19.56 per $1,000 of assessed value, with the average tax bill decreasing by $30.

The rate is the lowest Greenfield has seen since 2012, and is the assessors’ attempt to balance out the higher property values homeowners will face this year.

“I just felt that, with inflation and everything that’s going on, we needed to make sure that we did everything we could to just raise values only what was needed,” Chief Assessor Randall Austin said during the tax classification hearing on Nov. 20.

Austin said the average value for a single-family home in Greenfield is $286,497, which is an increase of approximately $10,000 from last fiscal year. The average tax bill for a single-family home in FY25 will be $5,700.

“We did make adjustments in value according to what’s going on in the market and what the sales told us,” Austin said.

This year’s tax rate is 83 cents less than last fiscal year’s rate. The lower rate was made possible due to the new growth seen over the past year. According to data from the state Division of Local Services, Greenfield saw a $31.47 million growth in property value, with the majority coming from personal property (nearly $24.27 million).

Austin said his team focused its attention on ensuring all property was properly recorded and taxed. Staff found a lot of personal property, such as vehicles, and businesses that were not properly inventoried.

“We found many more businesses than we actually had recorded in our system,” he said.

With the new growth, the assessors had more property to tax, allowing them to lower the tax rate to reach the same amount of tax levied.

With the new growth and limits of Proposition 2½, Greenfield’s levy limit was increased to just over $42.3 million for FY25. However, the city is not taxing up to the limit of its levy ceiling and was able to increase its excess levy capacity this year.

Excess levy capacity is the difference between the levy limit and the amount of real and personal property taxes actually levied in a given year. According to the Division of Local Services, Greenfield’s excess levy capacity for FY25 is just over $1.48 million.

The city has been steadily increasing its excess capacity over the past few years, as it’s considered an indicator of a community’s financial health as a measure of what a municipality does not need to tax its residents.

After the November tax hearing, city councilors adopted a single tax rate, which has now been approved and certified by the state Department of Revenue at a rate of $19.56 per $1,000 valuation. This marks a 4.2% decrease from FY24’s tax rate of $20.39.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.