KINGFIELD — Following up on an article published in last week’s Irregular, Kingfield Administrative Assistant Doug Marble called to report news concerning the increased state valuation in town.

The Maine Revenue Service determines town valuation which in turn determines things such as revenue shares in education, county taxes and is used in other funding formulas.

The $30-plus million increase from the previous years, now at $132.8 million, was in question late last week. The Maine Revenue Service recently clarified the reason for the increase.

The Town of Kingfield entered into a Tax Increment Financing agreement with Poland Spring bottling company for a 100-percent shelter of all real property taxes. This amounted to sheltering $20,932,426 worth of value. However, after state personal property programs and incentives applied, the company’s personal property value for such things as bottling lines, pumps and other equipment just went on the state books this year. Personal property was not part of the TIF agreement.

The total value as determined by the MRS is valued at $18,867,500 and was added to the books this year for the 2010 proposed state valuation.

Other increases, Marble noted, were due with a four percent rise in what’s sometimes called in the business as the “coastal and southern Maine effect.”

This effect puts a generalized and overall wide-spread increase on all property values in the town.

The town’s new valuation will be used in the school funding formulas for the 2012 budget cycle.

As explained by Superintendent Quenten Clark, Kingfield’s percentage in the local share of education will increase. However, the majority of the burden lies on the brunt of the newly developed tax base and not on the individual or existing taxpayers.