HOPE — The property tax bills mailed Aug. 27 to approximately 1,200 Hope residents reflect a substantial calculation error, and the town will be circulating revised tax bills in mid-September. The new bills will report a reduced mil rate — from 15.2 to "12.4-ish," said Town Administrator Samantha Mank, noting that the number has yet to be set in stone.

The message is clear, however: Property tax bills will not increase 33 percent on average in Fiscal Year 2027, as some residents have already lamented on social media, and will be less.

 Property taxpayers in Hope are being told not to pay the bill sent out at the end of August. If they did, they have two options: Apply the overpayment to the next payment (due in April), or request a refund, and the town will write them a check.

Hope requires property taxes to be paid twice a year, once toward the end of September or beginning of October, the second time is in April.

What happened?

Thank one unsung hero in Hope for raising questions about the August tax bill. He had sent an email to the Hope Select Board asking for details about numbers discussed and approved at both the municipal and school town meetings when the respective budgets were under review, and eventually approval by voters, said Mank.

The Select Board shared that email with Mank at its Sept. 8 regularly scheduled meeting, and Mank reviewed the 2026 Municipal Tax Rate Form that Hope had completed for completing its total assessment.

"This is absolutely correct," she noted to her herself, after investigating details of the citizen's email to the Select Board. "We have made a mistake. I personally called and thanked him."

In entering numbers to the calculation form, the Town had not added the state aid of $1,850,488 to the town for education of its K-8 school, a large enough number that helps reduce the overall property tax load.

While the town taxpayers' share of the school budget, as approved by voters at the Aug. 20 annual Town Meeting, was $2,670,134, the state subsidy to help further the fiscal load on taxpayers of $1.8 million had not been added to the mil rate form.

Now, the town office is working with Trio, the  local government software package company, to revise the numbers and resend the 2027 tax bills to Hope taxpayers. 

"I am so pleased this error is in the taxpayer favor," Mank said. 

Taxes will still increase this fiscal year, said Mank, but not as dramatically.

"Our goal is to have everything back into the mail by Sept. 16," she said.

And, while the town is not accepting FY 27 tax payments until the calculation form is fixed, "we are accepting FY 25 and 26" tax payments, said Mank. 

Laggards for those years still need to get their payments to the town office.

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657