Androscoggin County is a little slice of heaven.

That’s not just local pride talking. These are the findings of a group called — and we’re not making this up — SmartAsset, which has declared that the county is among the top in Maine in best value for its property tax dollars.

“This means Androscoggin County is getting a deal: better public schools and lower crime rates compared to the amount of money they pay each year in property taxes for the state,” SmartAsset spokeswoman Ana Gabriel said.

On June 3, SmartAsset plans to unleash an infographic explaining why Androscoggin County beats the heck out of other Maine counties. Until then, you can feel safe thumbing your nose at those poor souls in Oxford, Franklin and Cumberland counties, not to mention the others. That feeling of superiority is based on solid science, after all.

“That sounds about right,” said Androscoggin County Sheriff Guy Desjardins, who has been serving the county in one capacity or another since 1973. “It’s a nice place to live. I really wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”

According to Desjardins, the county is a sum of its parts. It works as a whole because each town is distinct and each contributes something.

“Each individual community does something different,” Desjardins said. “Each has its own priorities. It seems to work.”

“A little slice of heaven” makes for a nice slogan and all, but it does lead to one important question: Are there taxes in heaven? Because as both government officials and residents point out, Androscoggin County has the highest property taxes in the state.

SmartAsset explains its methodology: It answered three questions to determine which counties in the country were getting the best deal. These included: How good are the schools, how safe is the area and how much are the property taxes? The answers were evaluated by county.

Only counties with populations greater than 50,000 people were counted in the nationwide rankings. Those with one or more of these data factors missing could not be ranked, so out of the 3,144 counties in the U.S., about half were included.

Feeling smug? Who can blame you?

But those from outside the county were not accepting the news from SmartAsset with good grace.

“First off,” fumed Nancy Townsend Johnson of Oxford County, “I would not trust a group with such a name.”

SmartAsset is a financial solutions group that offers advice on matters such as first-time home buying, refinancing and student loans, among other things.