HAPPY NEW YEAR
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Which Would seem to be all that’s necessary to say for the next few days, for who will be paying attention to much else?
So that’s it until Monday morning.
EXCEPT, a few loose ends must be tied.
First, thanks to those of you who told me (though by then I had figured it out myself)-and told me so politely-about my truly boneheaded blunder in confusing ‘median’ with ‘mean.’
This is what happens when you: (a) are unedited; and (b) decide to insert some folksy example at about the time you should be getting ready for bed. Re-reading it in the light of mid-morning, I realized the error. Again, thanks for those of you who also saw it and alerted me. Maybe I should hire you as editors.
Actually, there was another mistake in that post, perhaps un-noticed because it is so common, but inexcusable nonetheless. I wrote that the poverty rate in Chittenden County was some five percent less than the national rate. It is in fact five percentage points lower, which even we semi-innumerates know is a lot more than five percent.
Yesterday, I reported that the increase in the equalized grand list was “largely” due to new construction. But William E. Johnson, the director of the Property Valuation and Review Division of the Tax Department says (and he knows) that it is due both to new construction (“sticks and bricks” is the jargon) and the appreciation of existing assets, with the latter usually accounting for more of the growth then the former.
The basic point-that the property tax system as a whole can bring in more money without necessarily causing an increase in everybody’s tax bill-was correct. But one ought to get these details right.
But if you write something five days a week , you are going to make a fool of yourself now and then. So my New Years Resolution is clear: Less Duncery.
Or-”Toe the Line (and perhaps Tow the Line?) in 009.”
