Property Taxes are Too High

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports that the President of the Saranac Lake Central School Board of Education has voted against the tax levy that District residents approved last Spring.

“I don’t have a problem with our budget,” Van Nortwick said. “I do have a problem with the way our tax levy is being distributed.”

Van Nortwick pointed out that Harrietstown taxpayers are paying $1,358,261 more than last year. They will pay $7,663,743 of the $16,348,331 tax levy this year. Harrietstown is one of seven towns in the school district and one of four completely encompassed by it.

Van Nortwick told the Enterprise that many property owners are experiencing dramatic jumps in assessments and taxes that are threatening their ability to stay in their current homes. He said school taxes combined with others — such as county taxes — are becoming a tremendous burden.

“I do feel for these people,” Van Nortwick said at the meeting. “We need to start thinking about that.”

So it's not the school budget that's the problem, it's the fact that the Town of Harrietstown residents have to pay too much of it. It couldn't possibly be because of the increases in the school district budget needed to cover employee salaries, health care and retirement?

Property taxes are too high in New York State and something needs to change. But property assessments in the Town of Harrietstown have not changed for 5 years. Might it be that Harrietstown residents have been getting somewhat of a free ride for the last 5 years? Especially owners of lake front property?

As a writer of a letter to the editor yesterday pointed out,

....assessments are not responsible for increases in school or property taxes. Local board members of all taxing jusrisdictions shoulder that burden entirely, and any argument to the contrary is a sinister diversion from the mathematical reality.

At least in the case of the school tax we have a say in whether the budget gets approved or not.