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Assesment error hikes Rotterdam taxes
Monday, December 22, 2008
By Michael Lamendola (Contact)
Gazette Reporter


ROTTERDAM — A $306 million mistake in last year’s assessed values means Rotterdam residents will have to pay more in taxes next year, according to a former town board member.

Because Rotterdam was incorrectly undervalued in 2008 for taxes, the county is seeking to recoup $1.4 million in unpaid taxes for 2009, said Rotterdam Councilman John Mertz, a Republican.

The Legislature Monday night approved tax rates for Rotterdam that include a 2008 rate adjustment of 60 cents per $1,000 assessed value. The adjustment is in addition to the town’s 2009 tax rate of $6.71 per $1,000 assessed valuation. Therefore, the town’s total tax rate for 2009 is $7.32 per $1,000 assessed valuation — a 30 percent increase over 2008’s tax rate.

Who made the mistake is unclear, but what is crystal clear is that Rotterdam homeowners will pay for the error, said Bob Godlewski, a former Democratic councilman. “The Grinch is coming to Rotterdam for Christmas,” he said.

The mistake centers on the assessed values the county uses to appropriation the tax levy to each municipality. Last December, the Schenectady County Legislature approved a $2.2 billion assessed value for Rotterdam for apportionment purposes. This resulted in a tax rate of $5.30 per $1,000 assessed value for 2008’s taxes.

This year, the Legislature approved an assessed value of $2.5 billion for apportionment purposes for 2009 taxes — an increase of $310 million. The town’s reevaluation did not cause the increase, Godlewski said. The town completed the reevaluation in 2007, and those values were used to calculate the 2007-2008 apportionment values, he said.

Mertz said former Town Assessor John Macejka Jr. is responsible for the error. “The work documents submitted by the town regarding the total assessed value were understated,” Mertz said.

Macejka , a Democrat who was not reappointed by Supervisor Steve Tommasone, a Republican, in December 2008. Macejka was not available for comment./

Godlewski, who has bene investigating the assessment error for about two weeks, said he spoke with Macejka about the matter and that Macejka did not recall what happened.

Godlewski said he is trying to obtain the town’s documentation from the county through a request under the Freedom of Information Law. He said the county should have reviewed the information for accuracy.

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ROTTERDAM
Rate fix pushes taxes higher
Properties were under-assessed
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

Rotterdam homeowners next year must pay their regular county taxes, plus $100 to $125 extra because of an assessment error, local officials said.
County officials said the extra payment, which they call a “2008 rate adjustment,” will reclaim $1.4 million Rotterdam should have paid this year but didn’t because the town was under-assessed.
    A homeowner with a house assessed at $180,000 will pay $108 for the adjustment plus $1,207 in taxes under the unadjusted rate, for a total of $1,315 in county taxes.
    The rate adjustment will also balance the scales in that the other municipalities will pay less in 2009 toward their share of the county tax levy, said County Finance Director George Davidson.
    “So they will see some relief,” Davidson said. “The next year, things will go back to the normal allocation.”
    County Legislator Tony Jasenski, D-Rotterdam, said the assessment error occurred in the Rotterdam town assessor’s office and must be corrected at once. “We don’t have a choice. It has to be corrected in the next ensuing tax year,” he said.
    Former assessor John Macejka Jr. provided information to the county in November 2007 that underrated the value of the town for the coming year, Davidson said. The county provided a document Macejka signed Nov. 16, 2007, that contained the values the county used to calculate the town’s taxes for 2008.
    The shortage discovered earlier this year has to be made up in the 2009 tax bills that are mailed in January.
    Davidson said the county asks assessors each November to verify their municipality’s assessed values. “We get the values each year from the towns. We ask the towns to confirm the values off the rolls. The values that came back from Rotterdam were not correct. They were understated,” he said.
    The county uses assessed values to determine each municipality’s share of the county tax levy. The Legislature adopts these values in December. Davidson said this is the first time he has ever seen an error of this magnitude in his 35 years as finance commissioner.
    The error showed up as a $306 million difference in Rotterdam’s total assessed values between 2007 and 2008. The error does not affect tax rates for the town and the school district, said Rotterdam Comptroller Patrick Aragosa.
    Macejka was town assessor between July 2003 and December 2007. Republican Supervisor Steve Tommasone did not reappoint Macejka in December 2007.
    Tommasone said the error likely contributed to a decrease in county taxes for many Rotterdam home and business owners this year. “This year we’re back up because the county has to make up for that difference,” he said. “This year really shines a light on what this [revaluation] did to our community. Everything needs to be rechecked.”
    Macejka said the information he provided to the county came off the town’s computers and that the county should have caught the error. “It is the duty of the county director of Real Property under tax law to gather that information from the assessor,” he said.
    “It is just curious they are blaming me for something and I am not able to defend it because I have no access to the materials sent to the county,” Macejka said.
    Nicholas Barber, head of the county’s Real Property Tax Service Agency, did not return a phone call for comment.
    County Legislator Angelo Santabarbara, R-Rotterdam, said he is trying to learn how the error occurred and to ensure the current assessed values are accurate. He also wants to see what can be done to help Rotterdam taxpayers deal with the unexpected tax increase. “This is a bad time to hit the taxpayers like this,” he said.
    Councilman John Mertz, a Republican, criticized Judith Dagostino and Jasenski, Democrats who represent Rotterdam on the county Legislature, over the issue. “This shows their failed leadership at county level. They should show up at our reorganization meeting Jan. 1 and explain why the county isn’t looking at other alternatives to help residents and why this can’t be structured over several years,” Mertz said.
    Former town Councilman Bob Godlewski, a Democrat, who has been looking into the error for several weeks, said current Assessor Craig Surprise may have added to the problem by increasing the number of properties that are exempt from taxation.
    Godlewski said Rotterdam’s revaluation did not cause the dramatic assessment increase. The town completed the revaluation in 2007, and this information served as the foundation for the town’s 2007-2008 apportionment value, he said.
    The county Legislature Monday night approved tax rates for Rotterdam with the rate adjustment as well as a new tax rate of $6.71 per $1,000 assessed valuation. Therefore, the town’s total county tax rate for 2009 is $7.32 — a 30 percent increase over 2008’s tax rate.
    Tax rates for the municipalities are: ...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00102

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ROTTERDAM
Town seeks talks on revaluation study Appraisal firm GAR standing by work
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    The townwide revaluation of properties completed in 2007 — the first in memory for Rotterdam — remains a topic of dispute.
    Most recently, an attorney representing the town has requested an informal meeting with GAR Associates to discuss the results of a consultant’s study that reviewed GAR’s work during the revaluation.
    Paul Goldman, an Albany lawyer specializing in real property litigation, said he plans to meet with GAR, the Amherst-based private appraisal firm, next month over the reassessment. If these issues aren’t resolved by late January, he said, the town will consider fi ling a lawsuit against the company.
    “The town is evaluating its options and has reached out to GAR for a discussion,” he said Friday. “There may be some factual issues in dispute.”
    Goldman declined to discuss the specific issues that arose from the $30,000 study, which was authorized by the town in April after Assessor Craig Surprise said he found a number of inaccuracies in the property tax roll. Town officials repeatedly declined to release or discuss the study, citing the possibility of future litigation against the company.
    Supervisor Steve Tommasone said Goldman was retained after it became clear through the study there were errors during the revaluation. He said state officials have been made aware of these errors and the town is now seeking some sort of resolution outside of court.
    “There are glaring factual and contractual issues that need GAR’s attention,” he said Monday.
    Cindy Baire, GAR’s vice president, acknowledged she was contacted by Goldman’s law firm, but hadn’t scheduled any formal meeting. She vigorously defended the accuracy of the roll and insisted she would work through any issues town officials might have.
    “We’re always willing to sit down and answer questions,” she said.
    In June, representatives from the Buffalo-based Emminger, Hyatt, Newton & Pigeon Inc. Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants began a review of roughly 800 properties among the 13,000 parcels on the town roll. The purpose of the study was to determine the accuracy of information recorded during the revaluation and if GAR lived up to its obligations to the town, which paid the company $752,000 for the work.
    The study of GAR’s work was funded through a $62,935 state subsidy the town received for having a full equalization rate. Town officials were presented with the results in October.
    Baire suggested that the discrepancies the town has identified in the roll may be a product of a change in the assessor’s office this year. She said that there is no standard governing the way that each individual assessor manages the information.
    “Every assessor has a different way of looking at things,” she said. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a standard process.”
    The revaluation was conducted during the term of assessor John Macejka Jr., who Surprise succeeded in January. Macejka now works as........................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00900

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Fewer assessors save dollars, make sense

    It’s hard to imagine a bigger mess than the one facing Rotterdam taxpayers, who are being forced to pay an additional $100-$125 in county taxes as a result of a reporting screw-up made when the town’s first property revaluation in more than 50 years was completed. For many homeowners, the one-time “rate adjustment” will constitute an insult added to the injury of sharply higher tax bills due to a reval whose accuracy remains in dispute and may not be resolved without a lawsuit.
    Property revaluations are almost always controversial, unpopular, politically dangerous, but necessary. That’s because property values change from one year to the next, but not necessarily in uniform fashion within a municipality. And no one wants to admit the value of their property has risen — until they go to sell it. The longer a municipality waits between revaluations, the tougher it generally is (on the assessor and/or reval firm) to reach fair determinations — and the greater the impact on people’s tax bills. Both are probably major factors behind the town’s dissatisfaction with GAR Associates, the highly reputable firm that conducted the revaluation.
    Another may be the town’s recent change in assessors: When the Republicans took over, they fired John Macejka Jr., replacing him with Craig Surprise. (Never mind that assessors are supposed to be above the political fray.) As Cindy Baire, GAR’s vice president, stated in Wednesday’s Gazette, “every assessor has a different way of looking at things ... there isn’t a standard process.”
    The point is, the closer there is to a standard process, the less likely there are to be discrepancies — between what two people, or taxing entities, think a property, or whole slew of them, is worth. The best way to accomplish that is to have as few people from as few different places making the determinations.
    In other words, Schenectady County (along with others in the region) would probably have much fairer, and accurate, assessments if their multitude of assessing jurisdictions — each with its own set of standards and methods — were consolidated under a single operation. Periodic revaluations would not only be easier and cheaper to .................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00901

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In other words, Schenectady County (along with others in the region) would probably have much fairer, and accurate, assessments if their multitude of assessing jurisdictions — each with its own set of standards and methods — were consolidated under a single operation.