Some people I've talked to received their school tax bill WITHOUT their Star deduction. They said that town hall was busy today with people upset about not receiving their deduction. Mine was okay. Anyone else???

Ours is ok, only about a $200 increase.   I noticed the tax rate is $14.94 per thousand.  Gosh we must be glad to live in Rotterdam, we could have Schenectady city tax, which is about $32 per thousand!

Ours went up about $60 and our neighbors went up about $500. I seems that they are trying to distribute the tax burden more fairly. It did in our case anyways.

Quoted from mikechristine1

Ours is ok, only about a $200 increase.   I noticed the tax rate is $14.94 per thousand.  Gosh we must be glad to live in Rotterdam, we could have Schenectady city tax, which is about $32 per thousand!

While Schenectady does have higher taxes, it is not as high as one would expect with the tax rates.  Rotterdam, due to its recent reval, has an equilization rate of 100% while Schenectady is only at 68%...that is why the tax rate is higher.  Rotterdam's tax rate was much higher when they were just operating at 2.95% just before the reval.

And don't forget, too, that Mike McNulty just got a little over $1.4 MILLION for Schenectady City School District.  That's money that the rest of Schenectady County, New York State, and the entire United States will see in our next federal tax bill.  Not enough that we already pay on a local basis.

http://www.house.gov/mcnulty/pr070823.htm

Quoted Text

August 23, 2007 Contact:  Lisa Blumenstock, Press Secretary
  
McNulty Announces Federal Funding for the Schenectady City School District

(Washington, DC): -- Congressman Michael R. McNulty (D-Green Island) announced today that the Schenectady City School District will receive $1,426,269 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education under the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Grant Program.

...and it goes on.

Schenectady (city) pays $32/thousand?!? What are they nuts? And what are they getting for that huge tax burden? But wait....now that the metroplex is supposedly bringing in these new businesses to help carry the tax burden, these poor residents should be seeing a decrease....RIGHT?

If the new businesses bring in a lot of revenue to the city the City Council may just take $2 per thousand off their tax bill. The residents who live in the city will get a real tax cut that brings them in line with the rest of the residents when hell freezes over.

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

ROTTERDAM
School tax bills come as a shock for some
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

   Like many Rotterdam homeowners, Tony Cagnina Jr. got an unpleasant surprise just in time for Labor Day weekend.
   The 72-year-old Gray Street resident got his tax bill for the Mohonasen school district and it reflected a 53-percent increase. And like many others, he marched down to Town Hall bright and early Tuesday morning to protest the dramatic hike.
   “The school taxes are completely out of line,” he said later. “I don’t see how they can do this and justify it.”
   Cagnina, a widower on a fixed income, will pay $568 more in school taxes alone on the three-bedroom Cape Cod he and his wife built in 1976. The hike came six months after the town’s property revaluation boosted the value of his home to $190,000, a figure he didn’t contest during the town’s grievance period.
   “ ... My school taxes went up almost $600 alone,” he said. “What’s going to happen when [town and county] taxes come in?”
   It’s a question Dawn Pasquariello, the town’s receiver of taxes, has faced dozens of times as property owners pay their first tax bill since the reassessment was completed last spring. Her offi ce window has remained busy with residents shocked by the tax bills they received Saturday.
   Pasquariello has listened to a number of property owners chagrined over discrepancies between the tax rate and what was projected on impact statements mailed out by GAR Associates, the private appraisal firm Rotterdam engaged for the revaluation. Several Rotterdam police officers were kept on hand at Town Hall Tuesday to ensure disgruntled residents remained orderly.
   Mohonasen Superintendent of Schools Kathleen Spring’s offi ce also fielded a number of calls from upset residents. Spring said many of the calls focused on problems with the projected tax rate listed by GAR in March.
   Mohonasen residents were projected to pay about $8.89 per $1,000 of assessed property value, when they were actually billed $14.64 per $1,000. Spring said the district had no input in the impact statements and never saw them before they were mailed out.
   The notices went out two months before district voters approved a $1.5 million spending increase in Mohonasen’s operating budget, which caused a boost in the tax levy of about 4.25 percent. But Spring said the budget had less to do with the dramatic increases property owners are now witnessing.
   “People are frustrated,” she said. “But the bottom line is it’s really about the reassessment in the town.”
   Conversely, Superintendent Valerie Kelsey said Schalmont school district residents haven’t seemed as shocked by their tax bills. She said the tax projection in the impact statements sent out to Schalmont residents seemed on par with the rate set last month.
   “No one is happy about it, but they haven’t poured into the district offices,” she said. “I think it’s because our people had their sticker shock when they got the impact statements.”
   Similar to Mohonasen, Schalmont voters approved a $1.9 million spending increase in May. The budget was anticipated to boost the tax levy by about 4.5 percent.
   “It’s not a question of school taxes, it’s a question of the reassessment,” Kelsey said.
   Stan Primett of Schermerhorn Road in the Schalmont district said the taxes on his property nearly doubled, but is was something he had anticipated. He said his impact statements seemed to accurately forecast his tax bill.
   “I knew it was going to go up,” he said, while paying a portion of his taxes at Town Hall. “It was what I expected.”
   Town Assessor John Macejka Jr. declined to comment Wednesday.
   GAR Vice President Cindy Baire said the discrepancies in the projected tax impact are an unfortunate consequence of using a ”snapshot in time” approach to calculation. She said many variables were undetermined while her company tabulated the tax impact of Rotterdam’s revaluation.
   For instance, both Mohonasen and Schalmont were considering the adoption of the homestead option, which allows the districts to have separate commercial and residential tax rates. While Schalmont’s Board of Education adopted the law, Mohonasen officials decided against it.
   Baire said the rates listed by GAR were calculated assuming both districts would adopt the homestead option. She said her firm used last year’s budget figures and then tried to calculate the most accurate rates.
   “I think it’s misleading to show that tax illustration, but we don’t have a choice [by state law],” she said. “We were just taking a shot at that point.”

Now I'm angry and want nothing to do with this town....its a dump that we the residents have to beg to get cleaned up....my school  taxes went up 1900 bucks.....and county will increase as much.....why..

OK, here is my take on this.  The reassessment was done because no one had been reassessed in what, 60 years? In the Mohon district it was written that the tax levy went up by 4.25% but tax bills went up sometimes 50%.  Why?

Logically I believe the following would be true.  The equalization rate was like 4%.  

So if my assessment (prior to this reassessment) was, say $4,000  (which might have been 100% of value back 60 years ago when the house was built), then my house was worth $100,000 speaking in full value terms.  And the town, in this reassessment was assigning 100% of value, i.e., full value.  But suppose houses like mine on my street are selling today for $180,000.  And so in this reassessment, the town assigns an assessed value to my house of $180,000.

Then we will have the person who bought a house built two years ago for $200,000, the town would have assessed that house (at 4% of value) as $8,000.  We’ll say that houses like that near to this person are selling now for $225,000.  So in this reassessment the town assigns an assessed value of $225,000.

The increase in taxes on my house is going to be much larger than the increase in taxes on the person in the newer house.   My guess is that homes built more recently saw increases too, but smaller increases.  Wouldn’t it be true to say that if the town assessed my house at $100,000 then I would likely have seen an increase in the tax roughly equal to the increase in the tax levy.  And suppose my house was assigned an assessment of $80,000, then I would have a decrease in taxes because I would have been overassessed previously.

Maybe it’s easier to understand also if we say my house was that $4,000 assessment and new houses of the same type, size, number of rooms, etc, were built two years ago for $170,000 each (and thus assessed at the time of being built of $6,800), you can see that two like houses are assessed very different and that would mean that I was paying less than my full share of taxes.   With this reassessment if my house and the newer house (of same style, size, no of rooms as mine) were both reassessed to $180,000, we will each have identical tax bills, but the increase in my bill will be much larger than the increase in the bill of that newer house

But here is the real catch.  Throughout all this reassessment process we have heard about assessments going up so much (naturally I don’t think anyone would say that their house was worth the $4,000 assessment that it had been).

The tax levy went up only 4.25% in the Mohon distrct, yet tax bills went up for some about 50%.  That means there is an ample number of properties who will have had to have experienced a reduction in the tax bill.  Who are the ones who received decreases?  

That is what happens when we dont raise our children to pay attention to the future of things to come by learning about the past.....you mean to tell me that these folks had no clue about inflation????? Someone was 'protecting the poor public'.......see what happens when we dont teach our 'kids'(sheeple) life skills...........PUUUULLLLLEEEEAASE........

I would also go and question our state 'leadership'(that's an oxymoron) about the corruption and where our $$ is going....we have bailed out NYRA TWICE(and that is only 1 example)....WHAT THE @#$!#$%% IS WRONG WITH THIS STATE---LOTTO, LOTTO, LOTTO,,,,WHAT A FOUNDATION WE BUILD......

MR.BRUNO??
MR.SPITZER??
MR.SILVER??

SHOW ME THE $$ TRAIL........................ >

Quoted from biaggio

Now I'm angry and want nothing to do with this town....its a dump that we the residents have to beg to get cleaned up....my school  taxes went up 1900 bucks.....and county will increase as much.....why..

Buuuuut wait,,,,,we get to 'file' for our STAR (STATE TAXES APPLIED RECTALLY) 'refund'----just to make sure we fall into that all important voting tax bracket.....what a racket.....you see--it is robbing Peter to pay Paul...... (I cant say what I want here-Admin will boot me off)

MR.SPITZER??
MR.BRUNO??
MR.SILVER??

I say the town/county purchase some race horses (what difference would it make? we buy lotto tickets)---hope it wins and then STAR(STATE TAXPAYER APPLIED RECTALLY) it towards the school taxes........ >

Quoted Text

“ ... My school taxes went up almost $600 alone,” he said

Doesn't he get to fill out the paper work to retrieve his money too???? Oh, I get it,,,,you move out and into the MFRH being put up all over.

But,,,,who will buy your home if it was under-assessed(de-valued) at the price you would prefer when paying taxes??? The full-assessment(valuable home) only works for you if you're going to sell....soooo, where is the truth?? IN THE LOTTO.....AND UNIONS.....

MR.SPITZER
MR.BRUNO
MR.SILVER

This IS the stark reality......