To the Editor:
Monroe Property Taxes are increasing at an alarming rate. What can you do about it: Calculate what you think your taxes will be. (Instructions below).Vote No to approve the town Budget if you are concerned about your increase.
Town Budget Vote 5/6/25: The potential increase in your property tax is estimated to be 12 percent.
I have spoken with the Vision Government Solution company, which has reevaluated Monroe properties, and the town Assessor Justin Feldman ( who helped educate me on the process). They have indicated that the average value of our houses will go up by 50 percent. I have calculated the average increase on about 20 homes and, for those at 50 percent, the increase may be about 12 percent. This is just a guess.
You can very easily (ok, it might be tricky, but it will be worth the effort to find out where you stand) calculate your increase by searching (Town of Monroe Connecticut Assessor) and then clicking on assessment Records.
You then need to put your address into the search field and locate your property. Once located, you can print the three-page report. It is a good idea to keep this record for future reference. Once you have the record, you can calculate what the proposed tax will be by multiplying the currently proposed rate by 28.61 per thousand dollars in value times the value of your house in the first boxed area on Page 1 on the bottom row.
The first value is the market appraisal value, and the town multiples that value by 70 percent to create the value for tax purposes. The 28.61 will be changing during the approval process, so keep an eye on The Monroe Sun for any changes.
Once you have this figure, you can compare it to your last year’s bill. If you don’t have your last year’s bill, you can calculate the amount on page three of the report and locate the assessment from last year at the bottom of the page. You then need to multiply this number by 38.27 (this was last year’s mill rate) and compare the number to this year’s new taxes.
Here is a summary of the budget, which is changing during this run-up to voting. (I got from the Monroe Sun reporting):
“The $107,069,131 town budget proposal includes $73,917,629 for education and $32,437,035 for municipal services. The overall spending increase is 2.84 percent.
Homeowners were hit hard by the state-mandated revaluation. To offset the impact on taxpayers, First Selectman Terry Rooney proposed lowering the mill rate from 38.27 to 28.61 mills for fiscal year 2025-26 and using $4 million of surplus funds.
What I do find interesting is the budget is going up by 2.84 percent, and it looks like our taxes may be going up by 12 percent. I have talked with both Justin Feldman, the assessor, and Terry Rooney and both were very helpful and earnestly working hard to bring down the cost as far as possible.
— Lud Johnson, a Monroe resident for 42 years and currently looking at a 17 percent increase in my property tax.
All respectful comments with the commenter’s first and last name are welcome.
What is the status of the new ball fields at Wolfe Park? Is there an update or investigation into how the town signed off on the project when it is incapable of growing grass? These fields should be opening this year but I understand that we’re still at least two years out with no funding to fix the issues and re-seed the areas. How did the town drop the ball on a project that was fully funded by private donations?
With the recent rise in commercial development in town, particularly on Rt111, the residents deserve to know the specific details related to tax deferments, or abatement agreements, relative to EACH of the new businesses opened within the past 5 years. We’d like to know what long term tax discounts have been promised to these businesses – including the yet to open O’Reilly Auto Parts store.
If the property tax burden of the individuals is going up ~10% and the budget only went up around 2.84% where is the remaining 7.5M dollars? Who’s getting that money?