Clicking the green arrow next to the tax rate entry brings you to the Tax Rate Setting calculator. The Tax Rate Calculator has four main sections: Appropriations and Revenues, Tax Base, Overlay and Surplus, and Information. At the bottom of each page, the user can select “Show Tax Rate Table” to display additional information, including the final overlay, breakdown of tax efforts, tax bases, and tax rates for your associated entities.
This information can be hidden again by clicking “Hide Tax Rate Table” at the top left of this table. This table and each of the four tabs of the Tax Rate Calculator are covered in the next section.
Appropriations and Revenues
The Appropriations and Revenues tab contains five sub-sections that contain the values used to set the tax rate: Municipal, County, Local Education, State Education, and Village.The municipal tab contains both the initial and adjusted values for appropriations, net revenues, fund balances, overlays, and other values used to set the tax rate. The adjusted values reflect any special adjustments applied by the DRA to the initial values. For the majority of municipalities, there will be no difference between the values in the two columns. If there is a difference between the initial and adjusted values, you may contact your municipal advisor for more information. The county tab contains the net required tax effort which is an apportioned value determined by the DRA. The local education tab contains local education information for all associated local and regional school districts. It also shows the education adequacy grant and any locally-retained state education tax amounts. The State Education tab displays the State Education Tax Raised and the State Education Not Retained amounts. The village tab contains the net appropriations for any associated village districts.
Tax Base
The tax base tab contains the total assessed valuation information (with and without utilities) for associated entities from the MS-1 and MS-1V forms (if there are associated villages).
Overlay and Surplus
The Overlay and Surplus tab is the primary interface for municipalities during the tax rate setting process, the system will default to this tab when clicking the green arrow. It contains the fund balance information and overlay request amounts. Note that the Amount to Reduce Taxes and Requested Overlay fields are adjustable.
Information
The Information tab contains supplemental information about the tax rate, including the retained fund balance, the balance used to reduce taxes, and the overlay adjustments required to reduce the tax rate by set amounts ($1.00, $0.50, and $0.10). At the bottom of this tab is a table of the prior and current year rates for the jurisdiction as well as the current rate calculated using the previous year’s assessment information.