Writing about Lancaster, Massachusetts

  Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash If you're enrolled in the towns aggregation program and your December bill from National Grid had an unexpected note like this one, saying that you "switched your supplier option to National Grid Basic service Supplier" it sounds like the town is working to resolve the issue: Here's the note I got from town administrator Kate Hodges this morning: " We were made aware of this situation yesterday from two other residents and reached out to our contact at Colonial Power. This morning they sent a note back to us stating that the Town’s aggregation is switching suppliers from Dynegy to NextEra effective with the December 2022 meter reads. We, of course, knew this. The representative told us that roughly 1000+ of those meter reads are early (cycle 1) and, due to a timing issue, they weren’t electronically picked up by the new supplier.   They have been in contact with National Grid who has assured them that they are diligently work

  Lancaster is in the final steps of submitting it's FY2023 tax rate to the state for approval; we'll seen the finished work in the 3rd Quarter real estate tax bills that we receive at the end of the month.  We approved a levy at the Annual Town Meeting, the town announced new assessessed valued in November, and on Monday the Select Board approved a tax shift value of 1.0. The tax rate for 2023 will (pending state approval) now be the same for all classes of property:  $17.19 per $1000.   That's a decrease from last year's $19.45 per $1000. The property revaluation means that some some will see a decrease (or hefty increase) in their taxes for this year.  In the interactive map at the bottom you can see how you'll be assessed this year. This table snipped from the assessor's presentation shows how different tax shift values would have altered the tax rate this year. A shift value of higher than 1.0, to shift tax burden to Commercial and Industrial property, migh