The South Colonie Central School District’s Board of Education adopted new tax rates on Tuesday, Aug. 30, with rates in the Town of Colonie coming in a little under what was previously projected.
The tax rate was predicted to increase by 2.99 percent but came in a little lower at 2.55 percent. Sherri Fisher, assistant superintendent for management services and strategic planning, said this is due to an increase in the number of properties in the town. This means a resident with a property valued at $222,222 without any exemptions will pay $3,699 in school taxes, an increase of $92 per year or $7.66 per month.
“It’s a little bit lower primarily because of an increase in property assessments, which has the effect of lowering the tax rate,” Fisher said.
This occurs because the assessment base has grown in the Town of Colonie, which means there are more properties with more value to assess. Property assessments grew by $2.6 million, giving Colonie an assessment base of $2.26 billion for the 2011-12 school year. Its equalization rate grew by 0.5 percent going from 67 percent in the 2010-11 school year to 67.5 percent in the 2011-12 school year.
Fisher said this means the town does not need to assess as much from each individual owner. So if more properties were put on the assessment rolls or someone built an addition on their home, this lowers the tax rates.
“It’s important for folks to know that they [the Town of Colonie] were on target,” Fisher said. “It wasn’t a significant increase.”
For other areas in the district, The Town of Niskayuna came in with a tax rate of $16.54 per $1,000, an increase of 3.36 percent from last year, and the Town of Guilderland’s tax rate increased by 1.92 percent with $19.31 per $1,000.
For property assessments, the town of Niskayuna saw an increase of $7 million in its assessment base with no increase in its equalization rate, and the Town of Guilderland saw a decrease of $370 and an increase in its equalization rate of 1.2 percent.
These numbers will look a bit different next school year, Fisher said, as the tax cap passed by the legislature this past session will go into effect. It will cap increases in the property tax levy at 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. This year’s increase was at 2.97 percent, an increase of $1.8 million from last year.
Fisher said she is not sure what sort of impact the cap will have, but there will be a change in the district’s budget.
“Depending on what the budget looks like or the equalization rates, I can’t say what the impact will be,” she said. “As more information becomes available we’ll be able to provide more.”
