Grievance Day in Schenectady was handled like a circus and all the clowns in City Hall running it should be ashamed of themselves for putting the people who were there with genuine concerns thru it.
Circus is too nice a word. Disgusting disrepair for the City taxpayers. You can always count one idiot like the letter writer to jump up and down yelling "It is Good!" when it ain't.
Of course they could have made appointments. Of course they could have reduced earlier numbers made before the recession and property value meltdown. Of course they could have had a separate line with those with completed forms. One minute for oral arguments? Sure Mr. DeLuccia that's very fair and well run-in your mind only. God bless the gadflies and I hope they multiply like mushrooms after a summer rain.
That guy is a cover up artist. Vince whatever. He is a total apologist for whatever Stratton does. %100 of the time.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
SCHENECTADY Next tax step: Tell it to the judge BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com.
Despite months of complaints and long lines of unhappy residents on Grievance Day, very few assessments have been changed by the Board of Assessment Review. Of 1,075 grievances, only 68 were granted. On the whole, the city’s reassessment was upheld. “The board spent the entire month reviewing the applications,” Assessor Patrick Mastro said. “They decided the information supplied didn’t warrant a reduction. I think it was a good assessment.” The reassessment also gives the city much more latitude to raise taxes. Over the next five years, the city’s tax limit will grow to roughly twice what it is today because of the new assessments. The limit is determined using a five-year average of a municipality’s total assessed value. According to the new assessments, the city’s total assessed value has nearly doubled, rising from $1.4 billion to $2.4 billion. But the reassessment isn’t over yet. Residents can still take their grievance to court — and dozens began that process on Wednesday, the first day for filing assessment cases. County Clerk John Woodward, whose office provides the documents and instructions needed for the complicated court process, found three residents waiting for him to open the doors Wednesday. All three wanted to challenge their assessments, he said. The crowd grew all day, and about 200 residents will file their paperwork this month, Woodward predicted. “We’ve had a lot of people coming in. Dozens of them,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “I am expecting a couple hundred. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t that many.” When Rotterdam reassessed, about 160 residents took their grievances to court, he said. He advised residents to take the process seriously. Court procedures are far more complicated than filling out a city grievance form, he said. “The instructions are quite complex. Especially serving the parties — that’s a court action,” he said. “It’s a process. You really have to follow all the directions.” Most residents simply picked up the paperwork Wednesday, which can also be downloaded from the county clerk’s Web site. Only two people had completed and fi led the documents by the end of the day. The city is preparing for the onslaught, which could be costly. Both sides — the homeowner and the municipality — must get a professional appraisal, which Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden said would cost $3,500 for a residence and up to $12,000 for a large commercial property. “It has a signifi cant fiscal impact for the city,” he said. In the past, the city had waited until the property owner got an appraisal, because the owners so often backed out at that point. But the court now requires both sides to get an appraisal immediately. Van Norden is already asking for a waiver from that requirement for these assessment cases. “We want to wait until they [the owners] belly up to the bar, so to speak,” Van Norden said. The city budget did include some funds for reassessment court costs, but most cases filed now would be handled in next year’s budget. Van Norden is hoping that the city doesn’t get hundreds of court cases. “That would be a big challenge,” he said, adding that he hopes simple math will discourage most. “If you shave a thousand dollars off your assessed value, you save $20 [in school taxes]. To make a big difference in your taxes, you’d have to have a substantial reduction — and assuming Mastro’s methodology is strong, it’s unlikely you’ll get that,” Van Norden said. ............>>>>.............>>>>...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01200
Tax Bill Appeals Take Rising Toll on Governments Jim Wilson/The New York Times Gus Kramer, a California assessor, said those appealing taxes say: “When can I have my refund check? I need to feed my family.” Published: July 4, 2009 Homeowners across the country are challenging their property tax bills in droves as the value of their homes drop, threatening local governments with another big drain on their budgets.
Librado Romero/The New York Times Peggy Tombro listed her New Jersey house for less than the assessed value, but her taxes are rising. The requests are coming in record numbers, from owners of $10 million estates and one-bedroom bungalows, from residents of the high-tax enclaves surrounding New York City, and from taxpayers in the Rust Belt and states like Arizona, Florida and California, where whole towns have been devastated by the housing bust.
“It’s worthy of a Dickens story,” said Gus Kramer, the assessor in Contra Costa County, Calif., outside San Francisco. “These people are desperate. They know their home’s gone down in value. They’ve watched their neighborhoods being boarded up. They literally stand in there and say: ‘When can I have my refund check? I need to feed my family. I need to pay my electric bill.’ ”
The tax appeals and reassessments present a new budget nightmare for governments. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Counties, 76 percent of large counties said that falling property tax revenue was significantly affecting their budgets, said Jacqueline Byers, the association’s research director.
Officials in some states say their property tax revenue is falling for the first time since World War II.
The recession has already taken a significant toll on states’ budgets, as rising joblessness, a weak business climate and a drop in consumer demand have cut sharply into receipts from taxes on sales, personal income and business earnings.
The pain at the state level is trickling down to county and local governments. To compensate, about 10 percent of large counties are raising the tax rates associated with home values to minimize the revenue loss, the county association said. Even so, most counties simply have to absorb the lost revenue. Municipalities are laying off workers, renegotiating labor contracts, freezing salaries and cutting services.
The revenue losses are coming as homeowners prod towns for new assessments, and as municipalities conduct regular revaluations of their real estate. While declining residential values weigh heaviest on many governments, the value of commercial real estate is also sliding as businesses shut down and move out of storefronts or shopping malls.
Property taxes are meted out by a disparate patchwork of cities, towns, counties, and school and fire districts, all with their own rules. Because tax formulas vary widely county to county, not every decrease in assessed values automatically lowers a household’s property taxes.
But officials across the country say there is no question that the number of appeals has risen from the usual trickle to a flood.
In suburban Atlanta, thousands of people lined up at government offices to file their requests for reassessments before a March 31 deadline. In parts of Ohio, appeals have multiplied fivefold. Tax lawyers in the northern suburbs of New York say they have never been so busy, and some towns have hired extra employees to sift through the paperwork and are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees to deal with the cases in tax courts.
The call for counties to acknowledge the falling price of homes is loudest in states where taxes are highest, or the housing crisis has hit the hardest.
“We’ve been absolutely getting killed,” said Robert W. Singer, the mayor of Lakewood Township, N.J., and a state senator, whose town is setting aside $2 million to pay tax refunds to homeowners. “We’ve never had this before. Usually they’re undervalued. Now, everyone’s overvalued.”
The appeals are not just coming from individual homeowners. Condominium associations and entire subdivisions are pushing for new tax assessments, as are companies that own office towers, industrial parks and shopping malls.
New Jersey, which has the nation’s highest property taxes, has been besieged by tax appeals from homeowners like Peggy Tombro, whose rambling home in Bound Brook is assessed at a value of $1.8 million but is languishing on the market with an asking price of $1.3 million. Her taxes are increasing to $53,000 a year.
“I don’t know what else to do,” said Ms. Tombro, 63, who has gone back to work selling antiques to pay her tax bill.
Right Senders start looking at the RECORD RATES. And cut them NOW! In the horrible, worst in the State Schenectady City School District the rate is over $20 per thousand in the City! And over $21 per thousand in Rotterdam! They will be taking in more money then they know how to waste. Any homeowner in Rotterdam stuck in the horrible City District should be outraged. Call State Education Dept-if you can locate a human being.
Sick of these Cali sob stories-they limited their Property Taxes by State initiative. Focus on this local outrage. NYS has the worst group of spending KRATS in the Nation. They all lie about tax relief and Upstate jobs. Wake up sheeple! Start kicking every KRAT out in Nov-if no opponent is on the ballot-write one in.
Wake up sheeple! Start kicking every KRAT out in Nov-if no opponent is on the ballot-write one in.
Sure, I agree with the notion of voting them all out, but to be replaced by WHO exactly? Don't even kid yourself into think that the reps won't pick up where the dems left off. Remember the pataki administration? Shameful!
We need new, fresh, no names to step up to the plate. People who aren't retreads. People who aren't corrupt...YET! Cause I personally believe, that even when someone goes into office, fresh and clean, they clearly don't stay that way for long. So for that I say TERM LIMITS!!! IMHO
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
people remember that the repubs ran the city for 100 years and made it go under there and now they want you to be mad at the prople who are fixing things the demos so dont listen to any of it over there
Of over a THOUSAND appeals only 68 were granted! Absolutely disgusting. Democracy Schenectady style? Property rates tank 30% and these senile KRAT idiots refuse to change ANYTHING.
Even when these morons make a math error they refuse to correct it. My advice to all City sheeple-APPEAL to the State Supreme Court. If you appeal to Small Claims Court you are wasting your time. Flood State Supreme Court with assessment appeals.
The blame for this farce must be put on Son of Sam and his all KRAT rubber stamps. RESIGN get out-leave. Anyone that supports this idiot Mastro should be thrown out of office. Bring a pen to the polls-again.
I have heard that there are some that ARE going to the State supreme court! They ALL should.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Real estate appraisal costs far less than was stated
Schenectady Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden has done a major disservice to the property owners of Schenectady who are thinking about taking their assessment grievance to court. It was noted in your July 2 article [“Next tax step: Tell it to the judge”] that taxpayers must get an appraisal on their property as part of the court process. In the same article, Mr. Van Norden was quoted as saying that an appraisal “would cost $3,500 for a residence and up to $12,000 for a large commercial property.” Having worked in the real estate brokerage business for 19 years, I am confident in assuring Schenectady taxpayers that it would cost significantly less ($350-$500) for an appraisal on the average residence. I can’t help but wonder whether Mr. Van Norden is so out of touch with such matters or whether he is trying to dissuade us from taking this step. I suppose there is a third option — that with our money, Mr. Van Norden is routinely paying exorbitant sums for appraisals done for the city in its fight against our efforts.
RICHARD H. FERRO Albany The writer is principal broker and manager of Prudential Blake-Atlantic, Realtors.
And the problem is, the "Rag on Maxon" prints this stuff - without searching for FACTS, then prints a correction buried deep inside, days later that says "oops".
Logged
Circus is too nice a word. Disgusting disrepair for the City taxpayers. You can always count one idiot like the letter writer to jump up and down yelling "It is Good!" when it ain't. 
