Ridgefield SD
The district’s property tax cost impact analysis (from the district’s website) is shown in the next image with the red border
Comments on the district’s cost analysis
The district fails to follow TILA (Truth In Lending Act) guidelines.
Only the bond principal is mentioned. The estimated bond interest and fees are not.
The existing bond payments (to cover principal and interest) of $121M for taxpayers still to pay (through 2036) are also not mentioned.
The district’s “cost analysis” has fundamental logic and therefore math errors.
Refer to the district’s bond management company’s bond/levy projection datasheet copied below.
One can see that the district came up with their 1.30 tax rate by adding the 0.51 and 0.79 estimated rates for the 2 bonds starting in the 2025 tax collection year.
But they fail to mention that they are assuming a 6% Total AV growth from 2024 to 2025. And then they are assuming a 5% Total AV growth form 2025 to 2026 and 4% growth annually for the remainder of the bond repayment schedule.
One can “make” a future tax rate to be almost anything by just assuming different guesses for Total AV growth (or decrease as in a recession). Want a lower rate, well just increase the guess for Total AV growth.
So to be conservative, they should let their example home of $627,852 grow at the same pace as their growth assumptions for Total AV. School districts should be conservative with other people’s money.
If they would have done that, instead of their $816.21 cost, they would have calculated an annual average tax of $1380 for the example property owner for the next 19 years. The starting payment (in 2025) would be approximately $850 rising to a max of over $2200 in 2042.
Now even if one runs a case for 2% of new construction compounded each year, the annual average payment for the example property owner would be approximately $1100.
District's bond/levy projection datasheet
