Board of Trustees Explores Possible Real Estate Tax Phase-In For Hardest Hit Residents

Should people who received more than a 25% increase in their real estate taxes after the 2016 revaluation be granted some relief? That's what the Scarsdale Board of Trustees discussed at a special meeting on Thursday night October 13. Under consideration was the possibility of asking the state legislator to consider special legislation to allow residents who received greater than a 25% increase, are STAR eligible and meet certain other criteria to be allowed to phase in their tax increase over a period of three years. During that three-year period, the balance of taxpayers would pay more in taxes to make up for the shortfall from their neighbor's savings.

Deputy Village Manager Robert Cole reviewed a study done by Village Managers to examine how many residents might be eligible and what the effect of the phase in program would be on the balance of taxpayers.

The study estimated that only 128 homeowners would potentially be eligible – and that assumes that these people did not grieve their over the summer, bringing their tax increase below 25%. To qualify, they also need to be up to date on their taxes and to not have done a renovation that is responsible for their tax increase. Last, they would need to file their paperwork on time.

Cole presented data to show the estimated tax increase that the balance of taxpayers would have to pay to subsidize the loss in revenue from the phase in if 128 residents qualified. He estimated these increases for homeowners with homes at varying values.

• If you own a house that is assessed at $629,000, you would pay $38 more in year one and $19 more in year two.
• If you own a home valued at $1,500,000, the increase would be $92 in year one and $46.40 in year two.
• For a home valued at $3.5 million, taxes would increase $214 for the first year and $107 for the second year.

If the Board did decide to move forward, it would need to pass both houses of the NYS legislature, be signed into law by the Governor and there would be ample time for public hearings. It would be put into effect in March before the following year's tax roll was filed with the state.

Commenting on the proposal, several people at the meeting asked why the Village would go to all this work to benefit fewer than 128 people. Others asked the Village to use their energy to invalidate the 2016 revaluation, rather than attempt to ameliorate its effects.

Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez said, "Given that this will take an enormous amount of village resources and time for people on the Board of Trustees, why would you spend political capital in this manner and not ask the legislature to invalidate the entire revaluation?"

Mayor Mark explained, "This was done to help those who were most seriously impacted by the revaluation. We know that this has past muster with the Governor. It is unprecedented to invalidate the revaluation. In fact, the Governor vetoed legislation to invalidate a reval due to objections from the county."

He added, "The Tyler reval was criticized as well. If we went back to the 2014 revaluation, there would be an equal number of people who were unhappy with that result. That is not a practical way to address this issue."

Mark said that the Scarsdale Forum was studying the revaluation and that perhaps the League of Women Voters and an ad hoc committee would also be assigned to look into the best way to do the next revaluation. He said, "That's where we should focus our energy."

Robert Berg said, "I believe the phase in is a bad idea. I object to any legislation favoring any one group of taxpayers. It is inappropriate and unprincipled. I think the number of eligible parcels is less than 128. What about those who filed grievances? Some may have filed SCARS? There might only be 20 eligible properties. It is ridiculous for legislation to be passed by the state for a very small number of residents. It does not make sense to use our pull with Albany to do this. Let's get approval from the state to allow Scarsdale to void this revaluation. I am serving on the Forum committee on the revaluation and I think our committee will ultimately say we need to do a new revaluation using the Tyler methodology."

Village Manager Steve Pappalardo responded to Berg, indicating that the Village needed more time before implementing yet another revaluation. He said, "We have found that revaluations that went well had a tremendous amount of community outreach before and during the process. It is also good to give the residents their assessments early and let them have the chance to meet with the vendor. We have learned a lot – and we don't want to make those same mistakes again. The community is going to need be informed. It probably will not be done for 2017... and will take until 2018."

Sherry Berkowitz of Ross Road said, "My assessment went up 40% Why will this work only for people who are STAR eligible?"

You can watch the meeting on Scarsdale Public TV here: 

After the meeting, the Board of Trustees held their regular meeting and Mayor Jon Mark offered comments on the phase-in and the equalization rate, which the NYS Office of Real Property Tax Services (ORPTS) has determined to be 89.14. The Village considered challenging this rate, but a consultant analyzed the data and determined that his calculation would be the same as ORPTS and did not recommend a challenge.

Read the full text of the Mayor's remarks below:

Comments by Jon Mark
Meeting of Board of Trustees
October 13, 2016

2016 Revaluation Related Matters Update

I provided an update on 2016 revaluation related matters as part of my State of the Village address at the Scarsdale Forum meeting last Thursday. What follows is an updated version of those comments.

• The possibility of seeking legislation to permit a three-year phase-in of increases in assessments experienced by certain residents on whom the impact of the revaluation was sufficiently harsh as to put them in jeopardy of leaving the Village was considered at a Committee of the Whole meeting held this evening just prior to this meeting. The pros and cons of pursuing that course of action were discussed, we listened to public comment on the proposal and the Board has taken the matter under advisement. To repeat comments made at prior meetings, any New York State legislation that would authorize the Village to adopt a phase-in Village Code provision would have to be approved by both houses of the State legislature and be signed into law by the Governor. If those events occurred, the matter would be back in the hands of the Village Board. At that stage, the Board would have to consider, at a public hearing, whether to adopt a Village Code provision that would put the phase-in into effect. Since the State legislature is not scheduled to re-convene until January 2017, it will be some months and several procedural steps before a phase-in Village Code provision is adopted, if it is adopted at all.

• The Village staff continues to collect and organize information that might support a claim against J.F. Ryan & Associates. In the meantime, the Village continues to withhold from J.F. Ryan approximately $49,000 in fees he claims are due his firm.

• This week the Village received notice from the NYS Office of Real Property Tax Services (ORPTS) that a tentative state equalization rate for the Town of Scarsdale of 89.14 had been established. This rate is minimally higher than the preliminary equalization rate of 89.06 issued by ORPTS on September 7, 2016. Soon after receiving the preliminary rate, the Village staff explored the possibility of contesting the preliminary state equalization rate issued by ORPTS and retained a consultant to assist with that effort. The consultant completed his analysis and submitted to it to ORPTS for review. After consulting with ORPTS regarding his work, the parties agreed that the consultant failed to undertake certain statistical procedures used by ORPTS in its analysis to make an adjustment in the sales ratio analysis data. The consultant then reviewed his work further and concluded that based on the parameters of ORPTS' approach, his calculation would be approximately the same as theirs. The Village Manager convinced the consultant to waive any payment for his work in light of this outcome.

Based on the review of the preliminary equalization rate through the Assessor and the consultant, and subsequent discussions with ORPTS, it is highly unlikely that any new information will be available to persuade ORPTS at an administrative hearing to increase the equalization rate substantially. It is therefore unlikely that further proceedings with regard to the equalization rate will be pursued. However, this may help to support our claim against J.F. Ryan relative to the quality of his work. The Village Attorney has incorporated this information into the bill of particulars he has drafted for this purpose and sent to J.F. Ryan's counsel.

• Regarding the question of whether the Village Board will take steps to void the 2016 revaluation, as has been stated at past meetings, the Village Board does not have statutory authority to take such an action on its own. We understand that should the Village wish to pursue this route, the earliest draft legislation could be submitted for initial consideration in Albany would be January 2017. Based on that timing, it is not likely we would learn whether or not the legislation passed for several months thereafter, close to the time the spring tax bills had to go out. Further, based on the report of the 2011 experience of the Town of Hamilton, New York when it sought legislation to simply extend the filing date of its assessment roll, it is possible that Westchester County might oppose any such legislative proposal as did Madison County in the case of Hamilton. That opposition proved persuasive in Hamilton's case and the Governor vetoed the legislation despite it having passed in both houses of the New York legislature. It is reasonably apparent that a request to entirely void an assessment roll – as contrasted with a request to simply extend a filing date which was Hamilton's request -- would be a more difficult issue for Albany to approve.

• We recognize residents' issues with the 2016 revaluation and the strong desire of some to reinstate the 2015 final assessment roll. However, it is less than clear that reinstating the 2015 final assessment roll, and it is not clear that that could be done, would be a prudent course to take since that roll too had its critics. One procedural issue that re-instatement might trigger is that those who may be grieved by the reinstatement of the 2015 roll would not have an opportunity file grievances. That inability must be seriously considered. It is my view that rather than reinstating a prior roll that also had its flaws and so could precipitate a host of additional issues, the Village as a whole would be better served by looking ahead and planning in a thoughtful way for the next Village-wide revaluation. If the Village were to adopt the phase-in approach just mentioned, those who felt the greatest burden of the 2016 revaluation and were in the least favorable position to bear that burden, would get some measure of relief (admittedly allocated to all other residents). In the case of the Towns of Greenburgh and Ossining, both of which adopted the phase-in approach, that approach was sufficiently bearable by all residents as to make it worthwhile. However, as has been stated previously, no decision has been made whether to implement a phase-in as described.

• With respect to the Assessor and the Assessor's Office, the Board is studying what should be done within applicable legal parameters about the staffing and functioning of that office.

Timing of SCARS Filings

The Staff has informed me that because the statutory filing deadline for the SCAR appeals of October 15, 2016 falls on a weekend, the filing deadline is extended to the next business day, which in this case, is Monday, October 17, 2016. This will allow homeowners the weekend and another business day to finalize their SCAR appeals.

Hyatt Field Parking Issues

The Parks and Recreation Department had been discussing with certain residents who live directly adjacent to Hyatt Field means for reducing the in-street traffic issues that are being exacerbated by the popularity of the new playground at Hyatt Field. The Village staff had been receiving complaints that residents could not get out of their driveways at times, due to the amount of additional traffic parked on their streets. In order to address that issue, Parks & Rec revived a plan that had been discussed in prior years to pave a driveway ingress at the border of the field and create a parking lot that would allow some number of park users to get off the local streets. When this plan became known to other residents, both in the neighborhood, and in other areas of Scarsdale, there was an outpouring of concern that open space was about to be paved over without due consideration of resident desire to preserve open space.

In light of the broader based concern expressed, a public meeting of the Parks and Recreation Council has been scheduled for October 19, 2016 at 7:30 pm in Rutherford Hall. At the meeting an overview of the proposal will be presented and resident comment will be solicited. In the meantime, no work on the part of the plan which would involve the paving of a driveway and a parking lot will be done. Note however, that as part of the re-paving of Potter Road, an additional three feet of width will be added to that street. This will allow cars parked along Potter Road to pull a bit further off the main part of the street and permit better traffic flow on that street.

Ad Hoc Committee on Communications

The Village Board perceives a need to improve its communications to residents. To that end and as the result of the efforts of Trustee Jane Veron, the agenda for tonight includes an item for the formation of an Ad Hoc Communications Committee. If the Board adopts the relevant resolution, the Committee will consist of 10 residents who responded to a general request for applications from residents interested in serving on such a Committee. Deputy Village Manager Rob Cole will also be a Committee member and the Committee will be chaired by Trustee Veron. Trustee Pekarek will also serve as a liaison to the Committee.

The Committee will serve for a period of one year. Its mandate will be to support the successful launch of the Village's new website, a communications platform intended to support 24/7 resident access and engagement. The Committee will also be asked to present written recommendations for strengthening Village communication strategies and cultivating engagement opportunities with the diversity of audiences served by the web site. We are excited by the creation of this Committee to provide focused resident feedback on this important and necessary function.