Tax Grievances Up 165% Over Last Year

In 2008, 227 Scarsdale residents filed property assessment grievances with Village Hall. This year, more than twice that many homeowners lodged complaints about their taxes. Home values have declined in Scarsdale in the last year, by an average of 15 percent. At the same time, real estate taxes have gone up. That’s why 596 homeowners asked the Village this year to reassess the market values of their homes, a 163 percent increase over the number of requests made last year.

Only about 10 percent of grievances resulted in decreased assessments, said Al Gatta, the Village Manager. As a result, Scarsdale has lost $250,000 in assessed value. But because the Village taxes property at a rate of $204.92 per $1,000 of assessed value, the reductions only yielded a loss of $51,000 in tax revenue for next year.  On average, residents who were successful in their appeals will save about $1,000 per year.

In light of the $29 million collected last year in property taxes, $51,000 is a negligible setback. But as more grievances are filed — as Gatta said he expects in the coming year — the Village will be left with a tough choice.

“You have to increase the tax rate or cut services,” said Gatta.

Those filing grievances may face an obstacle in a New York State legislation that allows the village to use home valuations from June, 2008, prior to the market decline, so that current valuations are based on last year’s inflated values.  Inconsistencies between seemingly similar houses also abound. Because there has not been a Village-wide reevaluation in over 30 years, some homes are grandfathered at very low market values. But for comparable houses that have undergone construction, or seen new owners, rates are far higher.

Annual tax rates are determined by the Village based on the full market value of the home, a fixed percentage provided by the state, and the village tax rate.  A home worth $1.5 million, for instance, would be multiplied by the state’s equalization rate of 1.58 percent to yield an assessed value of $24,600. At an overall tax rate of 1210 per $1,000, that amounts to a property tax of $29,766 for village, county and school taxes.

Homeowners can grieve only the full market value — in the example above, $1.5 million — that appears on Village records. One local attorney reports that he handled 28% more grievances compared to the same period last year. Valuations are available at the assessors office in the Village Hall, where homeowners can check neighboring or comparable houses before filing grievances.

Though Gatta said that residents are “very emotional” and that the assessors office is “very busy,” tax collections remain robust in Scarsdale. So far, over 99 percent of revenue has been collected.