The tax rate, or mill rate, is set annually by the elected Board of Finance members once the town’s budget has been approved in Town Meeting and the Regional School District 17 budget has been approved in a referendum. In simplest terms, the mill rate is the town’s levy—the amount of money the town needs to generate through the property tax in order to provide town and school district services—divided by the taxable grand list. In recent years, the education budget has accounted for about 80 percent of all tax dollars.