Freetown Select Board Sets Tax Shift, Approves Library Well and Voting Clickers

FREETOWN — December 2, 2024 — Freetown Select Board unanimously adopts a 1.695 residential factor for fiscal year 2025, projecting an average $82 increase for homeowners. Board of Assessors member Mike Fossum guided Selectmen Trevor Matthews, Jared Zagger, and Carlos Lopes through an unusually complex classification table reshaped by the expiration of Stop and Shop's TIFF — adding roughly $15.1 million in newly taxable personal property — and a step-down in Amazon's TIFF from 75 percent to 50 percent, adding approximately $9.7 million more. Fossum cautioned that published average commercial increases of roughly $1,700 are skewed sharply upward by those large businesses; typical small businesses in town will see increases in the hundreds of dollars. The board also voted to spend approximately $15,000 on an emergency well replacement at the James White Library, awarded a $19,995 contract for electronic voting clickers to Meridia to be funded with ARPA money, and approved a $32,399 contract with Inception Technologies Inc. to digitize Building Department records.