Town of Ipswich
PropertyTaxes

Are Ipswich's local property taxes "high" or "low"? The answer depends on when you compare them and what you compare them to. Ipswich local property taxes rose significantly in 2002 and 2003 because of the town's Open Space program. One useful comparison is with past years. A second useful comparison is with other towns.

Impact of Open Space Program on Ipswich Taxes

Ipswich's property taxes rose significantly in 2002 and 2003 because of the town's Open Space program. The following, which appeared in our Ipswich Chronicle newspaper as a letter to the editor in May 2002, describes the program and its tax impact in detail.

It's striking how many great views there are in Ipswich. We can look out over vast expanses of undeveloped field or marsh. Our open spaces are quite unusual and make Ipswich unique, something we as residents tend to forget.

The Trustees of Reservations, the Essex County Greenbelt Association, the Audubon Society, and the State of Massachusetts all protect nearby parcels of land. But they can't do everything.

Recognizing this, Ipswich residents chose to do their part too by passing the ten million dollar Open Space Bond at both the town meeting and the ballot box two years ago. The Open Space Bond came up at the same town meeting that supported the new town hall and discussed the building cap. That was the last town meeting at the old Whipple Middle School. The crowd, the largest I remember up until that time (the first night of town meeting this year was even bigger), had to be split with the overflow going to the cafeteria downstairs because the gymnasium was already packed.

Although some trepidation was voiced because the amount of money was so large, ultimately the Open Space Bond proposal comfortably exceeded the required 2/3 majority with 369 voting in favor and 149 voting against. The Ipswich Chronicle recognized the significance of this vote with the front page headline "Town meeting ready to pay tariff for open space." Then at the following ballot election, the Open Space Bond passed by a wide margin with 1,403 for and 876 against.

The primary purpose of the Open Space Bond is to protect land from development and so preserve our vistas. (Secondary things mentioned in the article are water supply protection, recreation, and general municipal purposes.) Of course preserving vistas by circumscribing development may also incidentally protect habitat and wildlife.

One of the problems the town faced previously when properties became available for purchase or conservation restriction was the need to take every single proposal to a town meeting separately. We never saw just how much town meeting time this could use up, because almost all sellers decided the next town meeting was "too long to wait" and excluded the town from their offer. The Open Space Bond gives our Selectmen authority without going back to town meeting every time to borrow bit by bit up to a total of ten million dollars, then pay off the loans primarily with increased taxes that are treated as a "debt exclusion" by Prop 2½. So far slightly less than half the money has been borrowed and expended. The remaining more than half the authorized money hasn't even been borrowed yet. After taking a while to get rolling, the Open Space Bond has now been used for the Willowdale, Scott Farm, Wendel, Smolenski, and Ross projects. The costs of these have only recently appeared in our tax bills.

After the initial Open Space Bond proposal was accepted, it became clear the voters don't just want to just see vistas, they want to be able to actually walk over their land. Although no further formal vote has occurred, the Selectmen recognized this and shifted course a little to accommodate it. The best example of this is that after a couple years of wrangling and hard work, the final deal for the Wendell property includes public access.

It's perhaps unfortunate that a decision was made two years ago in excellent economic times while the bill is coming due now in poor economic times. If the Open Space Bond, the new town hall, a municipal override, and a school override had all gone to the voters at the same time, the town might have prioritized them differently. Perhaps the Selectmen could "go slow" for the next year or two on using the rest of the Open Space Bond authorization. But that wouldn't undo the borrowing that's already occurred. And it might not work for new projects either, as parcels which normally wouldn't come up for sale may be forced onto the market by economic distress.

Retaining our vistas was a good idea a couple years ago when the town embarked on the Open Space Bond as one way to help do that. Retaining our vistas is still a good idea.

Because of poor economic times there was an informal cutback (or even moratorium) on use of Ipswich's remaining Open Space Bond authority for several years in the aughts.

Ipswich Taxes Compared With Past Years

This comparison of taxes in Ipswich is with past years. The 1990 and 2000 numbers do not include the effect of the Open Space program as it had not been started yet. Another useful comparison of taxes in Ipswich is with other towns.

Keep in mind tax bills can appear quite differently to people of different ages because the value of the dollar has changed dramatically over time. This is especially true of our senior citizens who have seen prices rise more than five times since they were young adults.

Of most interest is changes through time in where our money goes. Another comparison is our static wealth (property) versus our dynamic wealth (income) and how it's changed through time.

These comparisons, like those in the following section comparing different towns, are based on data mainly from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Revenue-Division of Local Services municipal data bank, and also in some cases data directly from the U.S. Census.

Some data was readily available back only to the mid '80s, and the income data was available only from the U.S. Census for 1990 and 2000 (that income data is actually from 1989 and 1999). For the more recent part of the graph, income data was not readily available from the U.S. Census at all, so a number called "DOR Income" from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was used instead. Even that number is only readily available retroactively several years later. So the most recent part of the graph uses 2008 data, which was the latest readily available complete set of data when the graph was revised near the end of 2011.

Where Our Money Goes

Static vs. Dynamic Wealth

Ipswich Taxes Compared With Other Towns

This comparison of taxes in Ipswich is with other towns. Another useful comparison of taxes in Ipswich is with past years.

These comparisons are all done using the mythical "Average Single Family Tax Bill" spreadsheet calculated by the state Department of Revenue-Division of Local Services and published as one of their DOR-DLS municipal spreadsheets. This number is generated by identifying all the non-commercial non-multifamily tax parcels in a town, calculating the average value of one such parcel, then producing the yearly tax bill on that valuation in that town.

I compare Ipswich local property taxes to four different groups of towns. Ipswich is definitely higher than many Resort, Retirement & Artistic communities, and on the high side of all communities in the entire state. It's just a little lower than the average of all communities in the eastern part of the state (not including Cape Cod and the Islands). Note that a few communities have very high taxes so both the eastern graph and the statewide graph extend quite far to the right. And Ipswich is definitely lower than many nearby communities.

All four graphs below are histograms with the horizontal axis showing the average single family tax bill in buckets ($500 or $1000 wide) and the vertical axis showing the number of towns in each bucket. The number of towns legend on the vertical axis is large for the graphs that compare many towns and small for the graphs that compare relatively fewer towns.

All the buckets are the same size and all the graphs show the same buckets (even empty ones) in the same positions, so the graphs be compared easily and accurately. Even smaller buckets would have put almost every single town in its own separate bar, and even larger buckets would have averaged out so much detail it wouldn't be possible to see if the bar containing Ipswich was toward the lower side or the higher side. A tall bar says several towns all have about that same tax bill, and a short bar says only a few towns have similar tax bills. Most of the bars are orange. The one bar in each graph that has a darker colored center and lighter colored edges is the bar that includes the Town of Ipswich.

Resort, Retirement and Artistic Communities

Massachusetts Statewide Communities

Eastern Massachusetts Communities

Nearby Communities