Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyD
There was so much money coming in that they could spend, spend spend and with that, huge areas of waste developed along with massive areas of bloat. Now, that there's significantly less money coming it and a huge bubble of students entering the middle and high schools, they don't know where to gather the funds.
It's absolutely ridiculous that with so many different revenue streams that the town is consistently facing so much hardship. Add in that piece of crap Town Manager that they finally fired and the current state of the town is the result.
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You hit the nail on the head here. Because of it's location and good school systems, Mansfield became a place where families wanted to live. The town grew too much too fast, and as a result the schools and infrastructures in the town had to be made bigger to accomodate the influx of people. When the commercial tax revenue decreased, the town lost a ton of money it had counted on. It will come back eventually, though. Just be wary of anyone who tells you the tax increase will only last a year. While it may be true, they'll find another way to get your money. They'll value your property higher or something else.
In Easton our budget is in good shape, but they still somehow raised my property tax in 2009. I can't figure that one out. We may end up going through the same thing as Mansfield in a couple of years. They voted to build a 124 unit 40B apartment complex in town in a historic building and the developer won't have to pay taxes for 5 years on the property (not including the 2 years while it's being built). That's going to be a lot of people being added to schools, etc... without revenue from taxes. After 5 years, it's going to be converted into condos with 20% being kept as 40B housing.