As the legislative session came to a close late Tuesday afternoon, the bill which would force Colonie taxpayers to pay a one-time corrective tax seemed to slip through the cracks of the Senate floor.
According to Senator Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, there was no reason the Colonie bill should not have passed the Senate after it had already passed in the Assembly on Tuesday, June 17.
It appears as though the Senate majority is just looking at it, not in terms of good government, but in terms of politics.
Senator Breslin said that over 9,000 bills have been introduced this session and about 100 made it to the floor yesterday, on the final day the legislature meets before a possible reunion in July. The Colonie one-time tax bill was not one of those hundred.
At the last Town of Colonie Board meeting, on June 17, where a home rule message urging the legislature to pass the bill was adopted by the board, Supervisor Paula Mahan had said that in order to pay off the Town’s short-term debt, the Town would hopefully receive the money from the tax in October, `If something hinders that, then January.`
The tax itself was last estimated to cost 90 percent of homeowners in Colonie about $150 should it become mandated.
For more on this story, check back at www.spotlightnews.com, or read the July 1 print edition of the Colonie Spotlight.
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