How does your town’s property tax allocation compare to the state average?

I’ve often received the question: how does our town’s property tax compare to the state average? Using the most recently available 2021 statewide data (from the Division of Local Government Services here), I put that visual together below.

When viewing the visual, it’s important to note:

1. This visual shows property tax for 3 local governments — Schools, Municipality (aka Town or City), and County.
2. Property tax is one of, and often the biggest, revenue for a local government budget.
3. In terms of what this revenue pays for (another common question): I’ve primarily analyzed school and municipal budgets on CivicParent. One overarching observation is that the largest driver of cost in these budgets – and this is pretty standard regardless of size of city or school district – is “people cost” i.e. employee salaries and benefits. Schools employ teachers, support staff, and administrators, while cities employ police officers, firefighters, parking enforcement, and more.