Property Value Per Student Compared to Tax Rate

View/download Property Value Per Student Compared to Tax Rate chart (16KB)

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT

This chart shows information about each district’s ability to generate revenue to support its municipal services, including its schools. The next chart, Relative Tax Capacity and Effort, shows information about each district’s ability to generate revenue compared with its efforts to do so. The data are supplied by the Rhode Island Department of Administration, Office of Municipal Affairs. We thank that office for its cooperation and help.

The property value per pupil is calculated by dividing the total assessed value for all the property in the district by the average daily enrollment of public-school students residing in that district. The tax rate is set by the local government, expressed as a dollar rate per $1,000 of property value. Thus a $10.00 tax rate on a $100,000 house will raise $1,000 in tax revenue. A house valued at $50,000 will raise only half that amount, or $500. A poorer community, whose houses have an average value of $50,000, would have to raise its tax rate to $20.00 per $1,000 in order to generate $1,000.

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR

You will notice the inequities among the 36 districts resulting from the value of their residential property. Municipal salaries, such as those of teachers, cost roughly the same from community to community, so poor communities must tax their citizens at much higher rates to generate the same amount of revenue as wealthier communities.