The Town says, "It’s not a big increase, just a few bucks each week”. Really?  Let’s see what our tax calculator says...

Question 1 permanently increases property taxes by 18.27%.  The Select Board and School Committee might prefer you isolate the cost of one year of override-only tax increases, but that's not how ordinary families manage their financial obligations. If you want to see the whole picture and what it means to your whole tax bill, put your address into our tax calculator. 

When you book a hotel room and the room rate is $100/night, you are barraged with offers to "upgrade" for just $18/night if you want the free bottled water and the air filter, but you don't calculate your cost as $18, you calculate your cost as $118!   And if you are staying three nights, that’s $354 instead of $300! That's the difference between the Town's calculator and the calculator at AffordableBrookline.com.

Brookline has raised more money through tax overrides since 2015 than any other town in Massachusetts.  Governing by override is not sustainable for most families because we actually have to pay our taxes out of our paychecks.  When you look at the total tax impact over three years, it adds up to a significant difference because not only do we pay for the cost of the override, but that is on top of 2.5% increase each year allowed by state law and the municipal debt exclusions that Brookline has passed recently for new schools — Driscoll, the High School, Pierce, and the purchase of Newbury College.