LINCOLN, Maine — Owners of $100,000 properties will pay $26 less in town taxes annually than they would have paid last year under a new 19.86 mill rate town officials have set, they said Tuesday.
Town Manager Lisa Goodwin attributed the lower rate to the $42.2 million in value added to local taxes by the Rollins Mountain industrial wind-to-energy site as part of site owner First Wind’s tax increment financing agreement with the town.
Revenue from the project allowed town leaders to purchase or partially pay for several pieces of needed equipment without raising taxes, Goodwin said.
Without the TIF revenues, the equipment purchases and other expenses would have increased the town’s mill rate from last year’s 20.12 mills, under which $100,000 in property was assessed $2,012 in taxes, to 22.12 mills, or $2,212 for every $100,000 of property.
“That is one of the economic benefits of this project,” Goodwin said Tuesday of the Lincoln portion of the 40 1½-megawatt turbines on Rollins ridgelines in Burlington, Lee, Lincoln and Winn. “We don’t directly get their electricity, but we do get a benefit from the project.”
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I’ll show this article to my Tea Party acquaintances.
Here’s another that should (!) drive home the point:
* Wind power to avoid €24bn ($34bn) in global fuel costs in 2015. With an anticipated rise in installed wind capacity, the total fuel costs avoided are expected to quadruple to €87bn ($125bn) by 2020. http://www.newenergyworldnetwork.com/renewable-energy-news/by-technology/wind/wind-power-to-avoid-e24bn-in-fuel-costs-in-2015.html