WHATELY — The Selectboard adopted a single tax rate for all properties in town of $13.34 per $1,000 valuation for fiscal year 2025, representing a roughly 2.5% decrease from the previous year.

The decision came following an extended discussion regarding the merits of adopting a split tax rate to further reduce residents’ tax burden by raising rates on commercial and industrial properties in town. The average single-family tax bill in town was $5,462 in fiscal year 2024, according to the Division of Local Services.

Selectboard member Fred Baron said he has “been a big proponent of a split tax rate” because it save residents money. Businesses, he said, can make changes to address tax increases that residents can’t, like raise prices.

“I fully recognize the additional burden [on businesses],” Baron said, adding that it would “reduce taxes on all the residents of the town.”

Additionally, of the approximately 75 commercial and industrial properties in Whately, three of them — Yankee Candle, Covestro and Berkshire Gas — make up “one third” of the revenue for those categories, Baron said.

“I would love to see the residents of town keep a little more money in their pocket,” Baron said, “and take a little more money primarily from multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations.”

His fellow Selectboard members, though, disagreed, as did JD Ross, a member of the Finance Committee and a small business owner in Whately. Baron, too, is a small business owner in Whately.

“I just wanted to speak as a small business owner in Whately to maintain the flat tax rate,” Ross said. “We need to promote growth in this town and trying to tax businesses more is not the way to do that.”

Selectboard Chair Julie Waggoner and member Joyce Palmer-Fortune said they like the idea of taxing these large commercial and industrial businesses, but the effects on small businesses are too burdensome to consider.

“I just feel like this is too crude a bludgeon to use to try and make something more fair, and I don’t know that it would really end up being more fair,” Palmer-Fortune said.

Waggoner added she’d want to see the tax exemption rules change to avoid hurting small businesses in town.

“I voted in past years to not split the rate because we are asking the bigger companies to pay more and we’re trying to give a break to the residents, but then we’re inadvertently penalizing everybody in the middle,” Waggoner said. “One of the things that is wonderful about this town is the number of small businesses that thrive.”

Ultimately the board opted to approve the single tax rate, 2-1, as Baron voted against it.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.