GREENFIELD — Roughly nine months since City Council voted down the adoption of a split tax rate last November, city officials are reconsidering the subject as they prepare to establish Greenfield’s fiscal year 2025 tax rate in the fall.

On Aug. 20, the Ways and Means Committee will hold a joint meeting with the Board of Assessors, where Chief Assessor Randy Austin will present the city’s various options for implementing a split tax rate, which would reduce the share of the city’s tax levy placed on residential properties compared to commercial or industrial properties.

In an interview last week, Austin said the split tax rate option would serve as a method to ease homeowners’ tax burdens amid rising property values and, consequently, a growing tax levy.

“Values have been going up quite a bit over the last few years. I’ve raised the average single-family value by 27% in the last two years, and that’s reacting to what’s going on in the market and how much everything is selling for. Because we also have a very high tax rate here in Greenfield, it’s a burden to a lot of the residential owners, and especially the seniors and people that are on fixed incomes,” Austin said. “It’s something that we’re concerned about, so we’re looking into how we can we possibly provide some relief and how splitting the tax rate would do that.”

Noting that the city has various options for distributing the tax burden between residential, commercial and open space properties, Austin calculated that at a split tax rate of 1.11, for instance, the city’s single tax rate of $20.39 per $1,000 of assessed value would become roughly $19.73 for residential properties and $22.42 for commercial properties.

The split tax option was voted down last November amid concerns that the public, particularly the city’s business community, had not been properly informed of the change and its impact on local business’ tax burdens.

Some, such as Precinct 9 Councilor Derek Helie, opposed the split tax rate last year, arguing that the increase in commercial tax rates would deter businesses from setting up shop in Greenfield.

“I don’t see the overall benefit [of a split tax rate] at this time,” Helie said last November. “It will deter businesses from coming to Greenfield. People do not want to pay more taxes to come to town. They want tax breaks.”

Austin echoed Helie’s concerns Wednesday, mentioning that while larger chains and corporate businesses might be better equipped to weather a tax increase, smaller businesses in Greenfield would take a harder financial hit.

He said he has been in touch with representatives from the Greenfield Business Association and he encourages the local business community to engage with this year’s tax classification process.

Following the joint meeting slated for Aug. 20, at 6 p.m., Austin said the Board of Assessors will meet with the Ways and Means Committee again in September to provide a more thorough and refined overview of the city’s split tax rate options.

“We don’t want people to be blindsided by much, especially the business owners, and I’ll give them a chance to say something,” Austin said. “I’ve heard from many of the people in the business community that they would not be happy with this. When you look down on Main Street, it’s not like every storefront is full and moving. We have some work to do and some economic redevelopment that needs to happen. I think it might be premature for us to do a split tax rate when everything isn’t going as well as it probably should.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.