In a move to help Bethlehem residents save money, the town will no longer be collecting taxes on behalf of two local school districts.
The proposal was first made last year at the request of the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District. The town waited until the coming tax cycle to do some research and then reached out to Bethlehem Central to see if it would like to do the same move.
“We decided it would be in the best interest of the community to pass along the tax collection,” said Bethlehem Town Comptroller Mike Cohen. “Each of those two districts will have their own tax collectors whose responsibility is to do the collecting, but BOCES will do the billing and handle the money.”
Bethlehem Central alone is set to see a savings of about $32,000 for the coming school year because the district will no longer have to pay the town for the service. It will receive more the following year because the state will provide some reimbursement for using BOCES services.
Cohen said the town will not see a savings in the coming year, but will in the future because they will not have to pay overtime to employees who previously did the billing or transfer personnel from other departments. The town will also be able to better use the time of employees.
Guilderland Central is also looking into making the same switch in the future for the small portion of Bethlehem residents within its school district.
“We saw an advantage to the taxpayers that both school districts wanted, and we think Guilderland will want it too,” said Bethlehem Supervisor John Clarkson. “So we didn’t want to hold our negotiating piece until the end. There is another advantage for us in that we will no longer be sending out a very large tax bill that says ‘Town of Bethlehem School Tax Bill.’”
Councilwoman Julie Sasso said she felt the proposal made sense.
“It seems silly on a basic level that we do collection on someone else’s taxes,” she said.
Councilman Bill Reinhardt asked if the town would then be losing revenue on the deal.
The remainder of the board agreed the proposal would be a benefit to the town in the future and would help with the workload of town employees.
“Go one office down and you will see no end of useful work (to be done,)” said Clarkson.
BCSD loan
The town will also be giving the Bethlehem Central School district a small loan for the coming year.
In the past, the school district has taken out a short-term loan to cover its initial yearly expenses. This is because the district’s fiscal year runs from July to June, but tax collection doesn’t happen until September, and it typically runs low on funds. This year, instead of getting a loan from the bank, the town will provide the needed money.
“This is truly a win-win situation for both the town and district,” said Cohen in an interview after the meeting.
Under the agreement, the town will provide a 56-day loan of $2.5 million to the district.
Cohen said the town will be receiving a higher interest rate than it does from many of its other investments, and the district will be paying a lower interest rate than it would if it received the loan from a bank. This is the first year such an agreement has been made because the district recently hired a new financial advisor who had notified them of the possibility.
“It’s a very new concept to both of us,” said Cohen.
