GUILDERLAND — Voters in May handily passed a $128 million school budget for the upcoming school year and this week the Guilderland School Board set the tax rate that will pay $84 million to support that budget.

Before the 8-to-0 board vote, Assistant Superintendent for Business Andrew Van Alstyne gave a detailed explanation of how the system works, yielding a decrease in taxes for Knox residents and an increase for residents of Guilderland, Bethlehem, and New Scotland.

The majority of the school district is in Guilderland but parts of it are also in those three contiguous towns.

The owner of an average single-family home in Guilderland will be paying roughly $150 more in school taxes this year while the owner of an average home in Knox will be paying roughly $200 less in Guilderland school taxes.

Van Alstyne explained that, by state law, the school district issues the levy that covers the Guilderland Public Library’s debt, which is just over half-a-million dollars.

“Our school district specific tax levy increased by 2.2 percent but the overall levy that we’re going to issue increased to 2.3 percent and that’s because of … the library capital debt,” said Van Alstyne.

He went on to explain equalization rates, which are set by the state each year.

“Equalization rate itself is a measure of roughly how close is the assessed value in a given town to what the market value or the full value would be,” said Van Alstyne. An equalization rate is usually 100 percent just after a town has undergone town-wide property revaluation.

An equalization rate of less than 100 percent shows assessed values are below the fair-market value, Van Alstyne explained, giving this example: An equalization rate of 90 percent means that, on average, the assessed property values are 10 percent below current fair-market value.

In the Guilderland school district, Guilderland, which revalued most recently, in 2019, has the highest rate at 75 percent. Guilderland also contains the lion’s share of the district— 91.5 percent of the property value in the district, at $5.2 billion.

Bethlehem, which revalued 11 years ago, in 2014, has a rate of 64 percent. Bethlehem has $421 million worth of property in the district, or 7.38 percent.

New Scotland, which revalued 19 years ago, in 2006, has a rate of 65 percent. New Scotland has $25 million worth of property in the district, or 0.43 percent.

Knox, which revalued 27 years ago, in 1997, has a rate of 38 percent. Knox has 0.69 percent of the property value in the Guilderland school district.

“How could Knox not have an assessment for almost 30 years?” asked one school board member while another echoed that concern.

“There’s no requirement,” responded Van Alstyne.

“They should,” said Superintendent Daniel Mayberry. “It’s not best practice not to. But there’s reasons … Oftentimes, the smaller the community, the less likely they are to do it on a regular basis — generally because of a cost reason.”

“Equalization rates are not perfect,” said Van Alstyne. “But they are intended to try to translate each individual assessment to some sort of equivalent value. So it’s not saying that it’s an actual market value — that this is what the house would sell for — but really trying to say, if we had assessed everyone anew this year, this is probably what you’d end up at.”

Van Alstyne also explained that, if the assessed value of property in a town goes up, “there’s more assessed value to distribute taxes across so … tax rates go down.”

On the other hand, when there is less value, rates go up. “In Guilderland last year, we saw rates go up because the tax certiorari assessment for Crossgates was finalized.” Because Crossgates Mall was paying less, rates went up as others had to make up the difference.

The tax rates for Guilderland school district residents in each of the district’s four towns are as follows:

— In Guilderland, the tax rate is $19.81 per $1,000 of assessed value, an increase of 53 cents. The average value of a single-family home in town is $286,292 so the increase for that average home is $151.94;

— In Bethlehem, the tax rate is $23.22 per $1,000 of assessed value, an increase of 95 cents. The average value of a single-family home in town is $285,300 so the increase for that average home is $270.65;

— In New Scotland, the tax rate is $22.86 per $1,000 of assessed value, an increase of 27 cents. The average value of a single-family home in town is $348,600 so the increase for that average home is $95.27; and

— In Knox, the tax rate is $40.16 per $1,000 of assessed value, a decrease of $1.45. The average value of a single-family home in town is $136,956 so the decrease for that average home is $198.28.