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SCHENECTADY
City may seek better tax-lien deal
Mayor satisfied with how ATF works with property owners
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The six-year marriage between American Tax Funding and the city may be on the rocks.
    The city has received state permission to consider other tax-lien purchasers, and if ATF reduces its annual purchase price, the city may entertain other suitors.
    Three tax-lien companies courted the city in 2004 before Schenectady chose ATF, which offered to buy all of the delinquent city taxes that year for their total value.
    In subsequent years, the rate dropped to 92 cents for every dollar of delinquent taxes.
    “Certainly anything less than a dollar we’d like to improve,” said Mayor Brian U. Stratton. “Realistically speaking, we’d like to keep it in the 90s. If it goes down, and other [companies] are responsible firms, we would look at others.”
    That’s where ATF may have the lock on the market. Stratton doesn’t want to sell tax liens to a company that might throw an elderly woman out of her house over a small tax bill. But once the liens are sold, that’s exactly what the company could do through the court eviction process.
    ATF has instead offered longterm payment plans, accepts partial payments and is willing to delay payments or even reduce bills for owners who prove they are spending the money on critical improvements to their building. Only two owners have lost property through evictions in the six years that ATF has controlled the city’s tax liens.
    “It’s not all financial,” Stratton said of his decision on whether to call for bids for the tax liens this fall. “We have to make sure whoever buys these liens is a responsible steward of these properties — is flexible with the owners and finds responsible new owners. So far, I think we’ve had a good, long-standing, satisfying relationship with this firm.”
    But financial pressures might lead Stratton to at least accept proposals from others.
    “I certainly wouldn’t rule that out. Certainly we’re facing challenges on many fronts with our reduced state aid and some fees,” Stratton said. “It’s always prudent to take a look.” ATF is also facing financial pressure, which might affect its ability to buy the tax liens at its usual high rate, Stratton added. Although the company would not comment for this story, its longtime vice president, Neil Harreveld, is no longer working for ATF. Harreveld was Schenectady’s main contact and has personally assured the City Council, on many occasions, that his company would...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00701