Politics & Government

Orangetown Council Considers Charging Schools for Tax Collecting

The Orangetown Town Council will continue to discuss the 2012 budget at its workshop 8 p.m. tonight.

The Orangetown Town Board continues to search for ways to get its 2012 budget under the state's 2% tax cap by Friday.

That will likely be a key point of discussion at the board's regular workshop meeting 8 p.m. tonight.

The board asked its department heads to offer ways to either raise revenue or cut expenses to lower their part of the budget by 5% and discussed the options at a special town board meeting Monday.

Find out what's happening in Pearl Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

One option discussed would be to charge the town's four school districts for the service of collecting their taxes. By state law, the town can charge each district up to 1% of the total taxes collected, though the number would likely be much lower.

"I support the idea," Councilman Michael Maturo said. "Legally school districts are separate from the town. Any distortion of that is through services and the way people pay school taxes through town. You need a very clear division of labor.

Find out what's happening in Pearl Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"If for 10 years, you give me a free service, I think it is reasonable for me to anticipate that one day, you will start charging for that service. I don't expect anybody to provide a service for nothing."

Councilman Denis Troy was open to the idea, but pointed out that the districts could choose to collect their own taxes.

"The school can decide if they want us to do the collection or somebody else," Troy said. "If they decide to use somebody else, the receiver of taxes office would have to be reduced."

Orangetown Assessor Brian Kenney said this would be a problem for the school districts. He said the town could figure out what it costs to do the collecting and base a number on that, but it would be passing along the expense to the taxpayers through their school tax bills.

"To take the number, these days, to the school districts and say, by the way, we're going to upset your cap," Kenney said. "They have a more difficult problem than we do. They have to bring (their budget) to a referendum. We're not kicking the can down the road, but we're kicking it sideways. The taxpayer pays it whether its that bill or ours."

"On a straight money issue, what they are doing is just taking a cost and telling us to tax for it," said Pearl River School District Director of Operations Quinton Van Wynen. "They are just passing the cost to the taxpayer from one organization to another. By charging us, let's say it was a quarter of a percent instead of one percent, that would be about $125,000, which is significant.

"That would translate into my budget to about a quarter of a percent increase in our taxes or we would have to cut $125,000 someplace else to make up for it. The taxpayers still pay for it, but it takes it off their books."

Van Wynen said such a charge could have an impact on the relationship between the town and the school districts.

"We've always had a good relationship with the town," Van Wynen said. "We've one an awful lot for the town for free, like opening up our gymnasiums and our schools for their programs and charging very little. The only pay if we open up Sunday for an open rec program.

"I understand where they are coming from and what the problem is. Albany pushes down on them and they find somebody they can push down to."

Van Wynen said that it would not be cost-effective for the district to collect its own taxes.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here