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Schenectady mayor: School tax bills sent too soon
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
By Michael Goot (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SCHENECTADY — Mayor Brian U. Stratton is upset with the city school district for mailing out tax bills before the new property values are officially set.
“We urged the school district not to send out these bills until our tax roll is finalized, and it’s irresponsible that they defied that,” he said.
Assistant Superintendent for Business Michael San Angelo said he was not aware of the city’s concerns.
“If that’s the case, they didn’t communicate that to me or to anyone else at the school district that I’m aware of, or the superintendent,” he said.
The Board of Education last week officially adopted the $160.6 million budget and set the tax rate at $20.46 per $1,000 of assessed valuation in Schenectady and $21.54 for Rotterdam parcels in the district.
The city of Schenectady went through a reassessment this year to bring their properties up to full market value. About a thousand people had filed grievances asserting that their new property assessment was too high. City officials wanted the school to wait until the grievance process is finished and the new tax roll is set today before sending out bills.
However, some homeowners had received their school tax bills as of Tuesday.
“We’re still going through that process of review with potential reductions. Any bills that were sent out in our opinion is illegal,” Stratton said. “It baffles me totally why they would do that against our counsel, and of course, we’re the ones that get all the calls.”
City Assessor Patrick Mastro said his office was “swamped” with calls but was not able to provide an exact number. He anticipated that more calls would come in today after those who were at work on Tuesday saw their bill when they came home.
Mastro added that the bill gives a school district phone number if people have questions about their tax bill and directs people who have questions about assessments to call City Hall.
“Realistically, people will call us and say, ‘I called the school district number and I can’t get anybody to answer,’ so they do the next thing, they call us and we answer the phone,” he said.
Mastro said he told school district officials earlier this year that they should seek legal advice about whether they could send out tax bills without a certified roll. He said there could be numerous changes from when the tentative tax roll comes out in May to the certified one in July.
Mastro did not have an exact count but estimated that about 100 people who filed grievances had their assessments reduced.
If people are still not satisfied with their assessment, they can appeal it in small claims court or file an appeal in state Supreme Court. Mastro said this is all done at the county level — not the city.
San Angelo said the roll was given to the district by the city assessor last week.
“I don’t know that Pat ever said anything to me about waiting or using that roll. That’s been the plan all along since we first talked about it,” he said.
San Angelo said the district had used the previous year’s roll in the past because it would account for all of the adjustments and grievances that took place during the year.
The school district initially said it was not going to use the new assessment values in issuing its tax bills this year but changed its mind because the time lag could have hurt some property owners. For example, a property owner who had demolished a structure on his property in the past year would end up paying taxes on a vacant lot. Conversely, using year-old data would have allowed someone who had built a structure over the past year to avoid paying taxes on it.
The state Office of Real Property Services said that the Schenectady district was the only one in the state still using old data and most other districts had switched at least a decade ago.
Board of Education members had been concerned about the time crunch in trying to send out bills on July 1 while using the new values, but they ultimately decided to use the new values.
San Angelo said the district mails out tax bills so homeowners have them by July 1, which is the beginning of the district’s fiscal year. It bills in quarterly installments, and the first payment is due by July 31............>>>>...........>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/jul/01/0701_schdybills/

I thought working together worked?

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

I thought working together worked?

It's kinda like that Renaissance thing ... it's not working out so well.

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

I thought working together worked?

It is working. To separate the City sheeple from their wallets. They want every last dollar "for the kids!" Whatever little is left can be wasted moving a useless nonprofit from Jay to Vale. An angry mob is expected at Schenectady High School-Black Box Theatre-8PM tonight. Bring your pitchforks

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Schenectadians: You’re stuck with your school tax
July 7, 2009 at 3:54 pm by Lauren Stanforth

Take a glance at our post on the Schools blog about the Schenectady city school tax bills sent out last week.

Some residents are more than peeved, especially after Mayor Brian U. Stratton protested the school district’s use of the tentative tax roll, not the final roll, to compute the bills.

But it appears, a final roll wouldn’t change the tax rate anyway.

http://blog.timesunion.com/localpolitics/4201/schenectadians-youre-stuck-with-your-school-tax/

the richest and whitest repubs who hate the kids and blacks want to keep the money and not pay the fair share over here and you will get a rude wakening soon if you all keep it up with the outlaw stuff

Stuck is the right word. Despite Sal's blather over 1,000 "white REPS" appealed there taxes with 68 winning! Plenty of working class DEMS are hot under the collar.

    What a total disgrace for Son of Sam, his toady Mastro, and the senile KRATS on the appeal board. Everyone got the same canned reply "insufficient data"! Only in Schenectady would this illegal alien Mastro be kept in his cushy job. The whole stuna bunch of KRATS needs to be booted out of City Hall and the place disinfected. Go back to work on the Erie Project? lol.

Quoted from 191

the richest and whitest repubs who hate the kids and blacks want to keep the money and not pay the fair share over here and you will get a rude wakening soon if you all keep it up with the outlaw stuff

Sal......those would be your gumbas overthere now....fanapoli!!!! you are a gumba gangsta are you not???

Schenectady needs more money so they just raise your property assessment to get it and they sure don't want you to take them to court because then they will have to justify their high assessment at a time when property values are at an all time low.

The only assessment they will have to 'verify' is the one the stimulus package gave the county.......

what value has the stimulus,,,,certainly not the value of the lint in their pockets or in the county building for more welfare cards....

NYS had better wake up and the county had better be a thorn in the states side for more jobs and stop being a pitfall
for the chronic unemployed/welfare etc.......

THE BALL IS IN THEIR COURT NOW........ACT AND ACT BIG.....not just some cheesy movie place jobs.....come on folks....
bigger bigger bigger.......