Coming in close to their original mark, the Niskayuna school board is preparing to give final approval to a tax hike that will hit 4.24 percent at its Monday, Aug. 20, meeting. That’s slightly below the estimated increase of 4.25 percent that was put before town residents when voters approved a $63.2 million annual budget in the spring.
We have been fortunate in that state aid and assessments have been on track with what we expected, said the district’s Assistant Superintendent for Business Matthew Bourgeois. `Everything worked out pretty well and we are coming in just slightly below what we expected.`
The tax hike will be included in bills that will come due for Niskayuna residents by the end of September. Those bills don’t include changes taking place as part of the property revaluation being worked on by Town Assessor Amy Houlihan’s office and GAR Associates, a private consulting firm.
That project has led to some residents expressing concern about whether it will dramatically impact property taxes, according to Republican town board candidate Scott Stevens.
`When I’m out knocking on doors and campaigning, I hear from a lot of people and some of them have expressed concern about whether the revaluation will mean that their taxes are going to go up dramatically,` Stevens said.
`How much your actual tax bill is going to be depends not only on what your property is assessed at, but what the tax rate is as well, and sometimes people don’t understand that,` said Stevens. `My one concern is that the town decided to reassess properties at a time when the prices of homes were at near record levels. That could mean a dramatic increase in assessments in Niskayuna and, if tax rates aren’t lowered accordingly, we could have a substantial tax increase that could hurt home-owners, especially seniors on fixed incomes.`
So far the reassessment process has run into few complaints with the assessor’s office saying only three property owners have brought minor issues to their attention. While digital photographs have been taken of all properties in Niskayuna, the revised tax roll they are preparing will not be used in calculating tax bills for this year.
Instead the town assessor is going to mail all homeowners in town a data sheet including information about their property. Property owners will be urged to correct any erroneous information and mail the letter back. Once they have made any corrections, Houlihan and her office will develop a tentative assessment roll and notify homeowners of their new assessment. The new tax rolls will then be used in calculating the tax bills in 2008.“