Winter tax levies approved for township

By Kevin Elliott

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees on Wednesday, September 28, approved just over 12 mills in taxes to be levied on the winter tax roll on December 1, 2022 – the maximum allowable under currently approved millages.

Bloomfield Township Director of Assessing Darrin Kraatz said the township files the tax request with Oakland County each year, but it was recently brought to his attention that the board of trustees had not voted on the actual form; albeit the tax rolls were still approved and on file through the budget process.

“I did some research and determined it should come to the board every year, and it will be presented annually for winter tax season millage levies,” Kraatz said.

The form includes 15 different millages, including two general fund millages; four public safety millages; a safety path millage; one road millage; a senior services millage; three library millages; a library debt millage; capital improvement millage and drain millage. The total of all millages for the winter tax roll is 12.0149 mills. That total reflects only taxes levied by the township, and doesn’t include school, county or other millages by taxing authorities.

Mills are used to calculate property taxes, with one mill is equal to one dollar per every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value. Therefore a home with a taxable value of $200,000 would pay just over $2,400 in winter taxes levied by the township this winter.

“The reason why this is being presented is that it allows us to request up to ‘x’ number of mills, and this is what we are saying what we are going to do,” Bloomfield Township Treasurer Brian Kepes said. “This is if we want to go less than or up to the amount permitted. This is just the board authorizing them to do that. This is just saying that we have the authority to levy up to this amount, and this is how much we will levy.”