Quoted from mikechristine1

Claims Albany has the highest city property taxes.   Waiting for the cheerleaders to post the story  but then fail to address assessment values, tax levy, rates, bills, fees.   Not to mention Albany city has 52 weeks of trash pick up per year, Schenectady does not because they move the dates (Albany picks up on Saturdays when there is a holiday).


ROFL


Obviously they are not taking into account the real market value of the houses, probably calculating based on assessment values

Quoted Text

Yes, Albany has a pretty nice looking skyline (at least I think so) but it doesn’t come cheap. A ‘Benchmark’ survey from the Empire Center released on Monday shows that the city has the highest property tax rates of any of the five larges cities outside of New York City (Buffalo, Yonkers, Rochester and Syracuse being the others).

At 1.22 percent, the city tax levy is equal to 1.22 percent of taxable real estate in the city. That’s excluding the school taxes, which would push the percentage quite a bit higher.

Albanians shouldn’t be the only ones despairing. Binghamton’s 2.51 percent rate is the highest of all cities in the state.

Cities typically have higher rates due to police and fire departments as well as other services offered in a more densely populated setting. School finance experts sometimes call that a municipal overburden, or competition with education for dollars to pay for city services.

Here is Empire Center’s release:


Albany and Binghamton topped the list for property taxes in the 2014 update of Benchmarking New York, the Empire Center web tool that connects users with tax, spending and debt data from local governments outside New York City.

Albany had the highest effective property tax rate, 1.22 percent, among the five largest cities, while Binghamton’s 2.51 percent effective tax rate was the highest among all cities.

The update features data collected by the Office of the State Comptroller for local governments’ 2013 fiscal years. Other key findings include:
Among cities, White Plains residents paid the highest per capita taxes at $1,898, as the city also had the highest per capita spending at $3,716. The Finger Lakes city of Geneva had the highest per capita debt at $3,318.
The Southern Tier town of Alma had the highest effective town tax rate at 1.69 percent.
The Long Island town of Oyster Bay, which last week passed a budget that reportedly hiked taxes 8.8 percent, had the highest per capita debt and spending of New York’s towns with more than 100,000 residents.
Allegany County residents paid the highest county property tax rate at 1.56 percent, while Lewis County had the highest per capita spending and Nassau County had the highest per capita debt.
“New Yorkers are paying some of the highest property taxes in the country, and Benchmarking New York is a powerful tool that lets them see exactly how their taxes compare to those in other communities,” said Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center. “While Albany mandates are responsible for a substantial amount of local government spending, some localities are making better choices than others. New Yorkers deserve to know how their town, city, village or county stacks up, and with Benchmarking New York, they can find out.”

The Benchmarking tool is available at seethroughny.net/benchmarking-ny.

Quoted from joebxr

Maybe you should read the article first before trying to show it as a lie versus Schdy....
It's clear article says they are rated highest of 5 largest cities outside of NYC, and the article also shows that
Binghamton is highest of all cities.

Quoted from mikechristine1

They can put all kinds of spins on these stories.  But what about the actual tax bills in relation to the market value.   Anything else is irrelevant in terms of saying how high property taxes are.  Ditto to compare the amount of property tax in relation to per capital income.  Two families living next door to each other with the same size family, same ages of kids, identical houses assessed the same.  One family pays 4% of their income in property taxes, the other family pays 10% of it's income in property taxes but the tax BILLS re identical down to the penny.  

One city may have a 100% equalization rate  with a tax rate of $10 per thousand, but another city may have an equalization rate of 10% and the tax rate is $100 per thousand.  Remember prior to Rotterdam's townwide reassessment a while back we had tax rates of maybe $300 per thousand.  But the tax BILL was less than today with a rate of $10 per thousand.

It's the same thing on another thread Madam mentioned a house on Grand Boulevard in Niskayuna and comparing to the one on Glenwood that took two years to sell in the city.  Two houses similar living space, almost similar age, similar number of rooms, etc.  The house in the Schenectady city has a prop tax bill of almost $9,000 and the house in Nisky has a tax bill of almost $8,000.   But the Schenectady city house is valued less than half of the one in Nisky despite having similar tax BILLS.  It's imperative to compare the TRUE market value (NOT the assessed value).  

Need to compare apples to apples and compare oranges to oranges

Quoted from joebxr

Point is you were not comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges with your post.
If these can all have a spin put on them to show whatever they want,
then what is the purpose of you sharing this "tainted" information and then going
so far as to tie it to Schdy, when that was a false comparison to begin with???

Quoted from mikechristine1

I was talking the apples to apples comparison by using two houses, similar in age, size, rooms, and to point out how so much difference in taxes only just a tad over a mile away.  The two houses are different style, but still just over a tad mile away, the city house has higher taxes for a way far lower valued house.  And this is both in the same county.  Nisky sees home values rising and a lower tax bill while Schenectady city has home value falling MASSIVELY and very much higher taxes.   What do people in the city get for their high taxes.

Like houses in Albany city would have lower tax BILLS for otherwise comparable houses with higher market values than Schenectady city.   And again, Albany home values generally rise while Schenectady home values are falling MASSIVELY.  And home sales rise in Albany and fall in Schenectady.

Something I noticed about Albany when I read something in the news the other day.  Talk about better service in Albany.  If you live in Schenectady city, you get less than a full year's trash pick up, despite paying for it with BOTH your taxes AND an ever rising exhorbitant trash FEE.  Live in Schenectady, if your trash pick up was Thursday last week, guess what, you have NO TRASH PICK UP WHATSOEVER THIS WEEK!!!!!    But the city of Albany, you CAN put your trash out tomorrow and it WILL get picked up in exchange for paying lower taxes than Schenectady city.  

Quoted from joebxr

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!
BS!!!!!!