for Middletown Council Fire Services Cost Committee
by Tara Abaring, Steve Koch, Miriam Rosenau, and Rob Wohl
This report is the product of a semester-long study assessing the fiscal impact of providing fire services to the tax-exempt properties within the three fire districts in Middletown, CT. It was commissioned by the Middletown Common Council’s Fire Services Cost Committee, and conducted by student researchers in Wesleyan University’s Community Research Seminar with the assistance of the Middletown, Westfield, and South fire departments. Research strategies included calculating the cost of providing services to non-taxable property, determining the tax revenue lost due to tax-exemption, and appraising the effectiveness of Connecticut’s PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxation) program, which reimburses municipalities for the taxes that would be paid on certain kinds of tax-exempt property, namely state property, private colleges, and hospitals.
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