CHICOPEE — On Nov. 4, the City Council hosted a tax classification hearing to set the tax rate for fiscal year 2025, during a special meeting.
Assessors Laura McCarthy, Victor Anop and Brian Suchy, shared a presentation and packet to the City Council that included assessed value for all the city’s properties including residential and commercial properties and new growth to residential and commercial properties for FY25.
The City Council also had to vote on a residential factor or a commercial shift. Each municipality is given the option to select a residential factor which will determine the percentages of tax to be borne by each class of property.
Chicopee has a split rate and the maximum shift that they could do is referred to as a commercial shift of 1.75, which was also approved by the City Council.
The residential factor shifts the tax burden from the residential property owners to the commercial property owners.
This resulted in a tax rate of $15.16 per $1,000 of assessed value for residential and $32.63 per $1,000 for businesses and commercial properties.
The residential rate for FY24 was $14.76 per $1,000 of assessed value and was $31.78 per $1,000 for businesses and commercial properties.
McCarthy explained that for on an average single-family assessed household, their taxes will go up $221 and on the commercial side, the average bill will go up $1,201.
McCarthy talked more about the commercial side and said the average commercial number is, “not good because we have so many smaller businesses that are assessed at $200,000, $300,000 and we have a lot of large properties that are over millions of dollars in assessment.”
The City Council and Mayor John Vieau also approved to apply $3 million toward the tax rate to reduce the amount that the people would pay in taxes.
McCarthy said if they had not done that, the average single-family bill would have instead gone up by $340.
McCarthy also talked about the tax levy and said, “We are well below our levy limit in Chicopee. That is $5.9 million below our levy limit, Proposition 2½ levy limit.”
A big discussion during the meeting between the assessors and city councilors was decrease in new growth from FY24 to FY25.
Based on the presentation, the total tax levy growth in FY24 was $1,775,210 but decreased to $819,035 in FY25.
McCarthy said, “We had a lot less new gross in [FY]25 and that was primarily in the commercial area. There was discussion about how we have less new growth for commercial, industrial property and then personal property. Hard to explain except those businesses had invested in personal property the prior year and we had seen a lot of new growth in personal property from Eversource in the past. It was significantly lower this year from Eversource and this is new equipment like poles and wires.”
In FY24, new growth valuation for commercial was $4.2 million and decreased to $1.3 million for FY25. Personal property decreased from $35 million in FY24 to $18 million in FY25.
Comparing the tax rate to surrounding communities in FY24, Chicopee had the lowest residential tax rate.
