Message from the Mayor: Your Assessment that went up, Anchorages, Route 9
Posted on: June 13, 2017 - 12:26am
Fellow Residents,
Most resident property owners have received a letter from Greenburgh with your 2017 assessed value. Many noticed that it was higher than last year. I cover what this means below. I also highlight two forums coming up that may be of interest.
Assessment Letter
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Many residents have gotten (or will shortly get) a letter from the Greenburgh assessors’ office with the 2017 valuation for your property. This reflects increases applied across all properties in Greenburgh for the year 2017. In almost all cases, in Hastings, property valuation went up by 4%, which is intended to reflect market conditions over the last year. This does not mean your taxes will go up 4% next year as a result of this. In fact, they will not be affected by this change in your valuation. Your taxes may go up depending upon what the School District, Village, County and Town decide during their budgeting cycle – but your taxes won’t be going up because of this 4% change to your valuation.
To understand why, I will beg your patience for a moment as I describe how valuation, tax rates, and taxes tie together. It’s simple once you “get it”, but it isn’t intuitive. Let’s use your Village taxes as an example. First, the Village government goes through a budgeting process to determine how much money is needed to pay in the next fiscal year for services we provide like Police, Sanitation, Parks, and support monies provided to the volunteer Fire Department. So, for sake of argument, let’s say that the revenue the Village needs that will be covered by property taxes is $10,000,000 (actually, pretty close)(another $5 million of expenses are covered by fees we charge, payments from NY State, our portion of mortgage taxes paid in the Village, and other income items). To get the effective tax rate, we then divide that revenue requirement (the $10 million) into the entire assessed value of the Village. So, let’s say the entire sum of all properties in the Village are valued at $2 billion (a little high but makes our math easier to follow). So, dividing $10 million into $2 billion yields a TAX RATE of half a cent for each dollar of valuation. So, for every dollar of valuation, you’ll have to pay a half cent of taxes. With me so far? So, let’s say your home’s VALUATION, for sake of argument, is $500,000: this is what your home was assessed at last year. You will land up paying half a cent for every dollar of your home’s value (TAX RATE times VALUATION), for a total of $2,500 in TAXES. If everyone pays their taxes, the village will get the $10,000,000 it needs to run.
Which leads to the next point. If EVERYONE’S assessment goes up 4% (like it did for 99% of the Village this year), that means that the entire assessed value of the Village goes up 4%. And that means that when we divide next year’s budget (let’s be optimistic and say it doesn’t go up at all but stays at $10,000.000) into the new assessment level of $2,080,000,000 (4% higher than last year), it yields a TAX RATE of .48 of a cent (I’m rounding down here a bit) which is lower than the half cent it was the previous year. Which makes sense if you think about it, since the same budget is now being divided across a village that has climbed in assessed value. Since your house has now gone up by 4% to $520,000, the rate of .48 cents times your new valuation will still yield a total tax of $2,500. In short, when everyone’s valuation goes up the same amount, no one pays more taxes as a result of that increase in assessment. (For those of you whose property values changed more or less than 2%, it’s the net of your increase/decrease against 4%, but if that means nothing to you, just write me and I will try to explain. There aren’t many of you and I don’t want to bog everyone else down in the math.)
There’s a meeting for seniors about this topic on Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. at the Community Center. Greenburgh Town Assessor, Edye McCarthy, will answer your questions.
Hudson River Barge Anchorages Presentation
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On June 14, 7PM, at the Greenburgh Nature Center, 99 Dromore Rd., Scarsdale, the Sierra Club will host Block Oil Barge Anchorages on the Hudson, featuring Hastings Trustee Lemons, Hastings Resident Peter Wolf and Scenic Hudson. This event aims to broaden the awareness of the Coast Guard’s proposal to add more permanent Hudson River barge anchorages for County residents. There is information about the proposed barge anchorages on the Village website here.
Launch of Rt. 9 Active Transportation Conceptual Design Plan
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Hastings and the four other river villages together received a $150,000 grant from the State to develop a plan of action for better bicycle and pedestrian travel and safety and improvement for all modes of transportation along Rt. 9 from the Yonkers line to the new Tappan Zee bridge bike/pedestrian lane, and on north to Sleepy Hollow. The effort is just beginning--no plan is set yet--and one of the first activities in this initiative is to gather community input. The launch in Hastings of the initiative and the opportunity for residents to weigh in at the outset will happen on Thursday, June 15, at 7PM, at the James Harmon Community Center, at 44 Main in Hastings. When residents from all five Villages demonstrate their strong support, our elected State representatives will have the backing they will need to push hard in Albany to make the plan a reality. Come to give your ideas as the planning begins and lend your support. The Village website has more information about this initiative here. The Rt. 9 Active Website is here.
As always, if you have questions or comments, please feel free to reach out.
Sincerely,
Peter Swiderski
Mayor