The mill rate is the first number buyers ask about when they compare the towns around Candlewood Lake. It is also the number most likely to lead them to the wrong conclusion.
Here are the most recent rates published for the five towns, from the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management mill rate dataset. These are the rates for the fiscal year ending in 2026, set against the October 1, 2024 Grand List. One timing caveat, written September 2026. These are the newest rates in the state dataset, but they are not necessarily the rates your town is billing today. Connecticut towns adopt new rates each spring, and the Office of Policy and Management publishes them on a lag. If you are running numbers on a specific property, confirm the rate now in effect with that town assessor rather than relying on any published table, including this one.
Town | Mill rate, FY 2026 |
|---|---|
Sherman | 16.67 |
Danbury | 24.99 |
New Fairfield | 26.33 |
Brookfield | 28.93 |
New Milford | 30.96 |
Read as a ranking of tax burden, that table is misleading. Here is why.
A mill rate is half of a multiplication problem
A mill is one dollar of tax per one thousand dollars of assessed value. Connecticut assesses at 70 percent of market value. Your bill is assessment multiplied by mill rate.
Change either number and the bill changes. A town with a low mill rate and high assessments can easily bill more than a town with a high mill rate and low assessments. The rate alone tells you nothing until you pair it with what the town says your house is worth.
Sherman's 16.67 is genuinely low. It is low partly because Sherman is a small town with a small budget, and partly because assessed values per property there are high. The rate is not the story by itself.
Revaluations make the rate jump for reasons that have nothing to do with your taxes going up
This is where the mill rate becomes actively deceptive. Watch New Fairfield across four years in the same state dataset:
- FY 2023: 32.47
- FY 2024: 34.90
- FY 2025: 36.52
- FY 2026: 26.33
That is a drop of more than 10 mills in a single year, roughly 28 percent. Nobody's taxes fell 28 percent.
What happened is a revaluation. Assessed values across town were reset to current market evidence, the Grand List grew, and the mill rate came down to raise a similar amount of revenue against a larger base. The rate collapsed. The bills did not.
Danbury shows the same pattern one cycle earlier:
- FY 2023: 28.22
- FY 2024: 23.33
- FY 2025: 24.44
- FY 2026: 24.99
A sharp drop at revaluation, then a normal upward drift as budgets grow.
Meanwhile Brookfield and New Milford, both further from their last revaluation across this run, drift steadily upward. Brookfield ran 25.88, then 26.86, then 27.90, then 28.93. New Milford ran 28.45, then 28.98, then 29.77, then 30.96. That New Milford run has now ended. The town revalued on the October 1, 2025 Grand List, so the next New Milford rate is a post revaluation rate and should not be read as a continuation of that upward drift. Expect the rate itself to fall while the assessments it is applied to rise, which is exactly the pattern Danbury shows above.
So a rising mill rate can simply mean a town is between revaluations, and a falling mill rate can mean a town just had one. Neither movement tells you which way bills went.
Brookfield's number is about to move
Brookfield is running its revaluation now, for the Grand List of October 1, 2026, with Tyler Technologies contracted to do the field work. Field inspections began June 18, 2026.
The practical consequence is that Brookfield's 28.93 is a rate set against old values. New assessments reach tax bills in July 2027, and the mill rate that goes with them will not be adopted until roughly late April or May of 2027.
Anyone multiplying Brookfield's current mill rate by a new assessment is doing arithmetic that cannot be right yet.
How to actually compare two towns
Pull the real assessment on the real house. Every one of these towns publishes property records online. Find the specific property, take the current assessed value, multiply by the current mill rate, and you have the actual bill. Comparing two specific houses beats comparing two towns every time.
Check where each town sits in its revaluation cycle. A town that revalued last year has a rate reflecting current values. A town four years out does not. Buying in a town about to revalue means buying into a reset you can see coming.
Watch for the assessment that has not caught up. On Candlewood in particular, waterfront values have not moved in step with inland values. A lakefront property still carrying an assessment from a market that no longer exists is not a bargain. It is a repricing waiting to happen, and it will happen at the next revaluation.
The lake makes this harder, not easier
Two properties on the same road in the same town can carry very different assessments for reasons that are correct: deeded water rights, dock rights, association membership, actual frontage, and whether the shoreline strip is owned outright or held under license.
They can also differ for reasons that are simply wrong, because those distinctions are hard to capture at scale and revaluations are done at scale.
That gap, between what a town's records say a lake property is and what it actually is, is where the real money sits on both sides of a transaction. A mill rate table will never show it to you.
The short version
Sherman's 16.67 and New Milford's 30.96 are both true, and neither one is a tax bill. Ask for the assessment on the specific property, ask when the town last revalued, and do the multiplication yourself.
If you want help reading what a specific Candlewood-area property is genuinely worth against what the town thinks it is worth, start at ConnorCTHomes.com.
Related reading: the second mill rate: every Candlewood Lake tax district on the state's fiscal 2026 list.
Connor Kostyra, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson, CT Lic. RES.0836348.
Connor CT Homes is a marketing brand. Real estate services are provided through RE/MAX Rise, 1297 Main Street, Watertown, CT 06795.
Mill rates are as published by the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management for the fiscal year ending 2026 and change annually. This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Confirm current figures with the town assessor.
The other lake towns, from the same state dataset
The five Candlewood towns are not the only lake towns this site covers, and the same Office of Policy and Management dataset, "Mill Rates for FY 2014-2026," carries the neighbors. Checked September 4, 2026, the dataset's most recent fiscal year is still 2026, the year set against the October 1, 2024 grand list, so no town's rate for the year that began July 1, 2026 is in it yet; those come from each town's own adoption and reach the state file later. For the fiscal year ending 2026 it lists these town-level real and personal property rates for the towns on Lake Waramaug, Lake Lillinonah, Lake Zoar and Bantam Lake, with the prior year beside each:
- Kent: 16.87 (fiscal year 2025: 15.59)
- Warren: 12.75 (fiscal year 2025: 12.75)
- Washington: 10.85 (fiscal year 2025: 10.85)
- Bridgewater: 19 (fiscal year 2025: 17.75)
- Roxbury: 13 (fiscal year 2025: 12.6)
- Southbury: 24.2 (fiscal year 2025: 23.6)
- Newtown: 28.74 (fiscal year 2025: 26.97)
- Morris: 19.43 (fiscal year 2025: 17.58)
- Litchfield: 20 (fiscal year 2025: 18.5)
The same warning applies harder here than on Candlewood. Washington's 10.85 follows a revaluation that dropped it from 14.25 two years earlier; Warren's 12.75 sits two years after a drop from 14.15; Kent's assessor posts its current rate against a last revaluation of October 1, 2023 with the next on October 1, 2028. A low number on Lake Waramaug is mostly a statement about assessed values per property, and a town two or three years past a revaluation is carrying values that no longer match the market either way. The town pages for Kent, Warren and New Preston carry each town's own published figures and revaluation dates.
Source: Connecticut Office of Policy and Management, "Mill Rates for FY 2014-2026" dataset on data.ct.gov (rows last updated July 22, 2026), town-level real and personal property rates, fiscal years 2025 and 2026, read September 4, 2026; Town of Kent, Mill Rate and Revaluation page. Rates change every July; confirm the current year with the town.
Common questions about Candlewood town mill rates
What are the current mill rates for the five Candlewood towns?
For the fiscal year ending in 2026, set against the October 1, 2024 Grand List, the published rates from the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management dataset are: Sherman 16.67, Danbury 24.99, New Fairfield 26.33, Brookfield 28.93 and New Milford 30.96. Read as a ranking of tax burden, that order is misleading, because a mill rate is only half of a multiplication problem.
Does the lowest mill rate mean the lowest tax bill?
No. A mill is one dollar of tax per one thousand dollars of assessed value, Connecticut assesses at 70 percent of market value, and your bill is the assessment multiplied by the mill rate. Change either number and the bill changes, so a town with a low rate and high assessments can easily bill more than a town with a high rate and low assessments. Sherman's 16.67 is genuinely low, partly because Sherman is a small town with a small budget and partly because assessed values per property there are high. The rate is not the story by itself.
Why did Danbury's mill rate drop and then climb again?
That is the revaluation pattern, and it shows up clearly in the state dataset. Danbury ran 28.22, then 23.33, then 24.44, then 24.99: a sharp drop at revaluation, then a normal upward drift as budgets grow. Brookfield and New Milford, both further from their last revaluation, drift steadily upward instead. Brookfield ran 25.88, 26.86, 27.90, 28.93 and New Milford ran 28.45, 28.98, 29.77, 30.96. So a rising mill rate can simply mean a town is between revaluations, and a falling one can mean a town just had one. Neither movement tells you which way bills actually went.
Can I use Brookfield's current rate to estimate my future tax bill?
Not reliably, because Brookfield's number is about to move. The town is running its revaluation now for the Grand List of October 1, 2026, with Tyler Technologies contracted to do the field work and inspections that began June 18, 2026. That makes 28.93 a rate set against old values. New assessments reach tax bills in July 2027, and the mill rate that goes with them will not be adopted until roughly late April or May. Anyone multiplying Brookfield's current mill rate by a new assessment is doing arithmetic that cannot be right yet.
How should I actually compare two towns?
Pull the real assessment on the real house. Every one of these towns publishes property records online, so find the specific property, take the current assessed value, multiply by the current mill rate, and you have the actual bill rather than a town level average. Then check where each town sits in its revaluation cycle, because a town that revalued last year has a rate reflecting current values and a town four years out does not. On Candlewood specifically, watch for the assessment that has not caught up: waterfront values have not moved in step with inland values, and a lakefront property still carrying an assessment from a market that no longer exists is worth spotting before you write the offer.
