January 2025
Hari Shankaran
In this project, I have created several interactive data visualizations to view information regarding Williamstown finances. All data was obtained from the Government of Massachusetts’ Division of Local Services (DLS) website.
We see that compared to Great Barrington, Dalton, Lee, and Lenox (the 4 towns in Berkshire county with similar population levels, areas, and income levels), Williamstown a greater proportion of its property taxes from residential levies. We can see the breakdown of property taxes between towns in 2023 and 2024 below.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21399474/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21402569/
A very important question to ask is: where does this money go? Below, you can find a breakdown of Williamstown tax expenditures in 2023 and 2024.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21402783/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21402669/
Another interesting question is whether we use the money raised by taxes efficiently? Below we can see a comparison between the budget per capita and expenditure per capita in Williamstown between 2020 and 2024. Almost consistently (with the exception of 2022, a Covid year), we have a significant amount of budget left over that spills into the next year - that money could be utilized in the present year to stimulate economic growth.