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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From the Westchester County Board of Legislators. April 10, 2018:

The Westchester County Board of Legislators Monday night passed a measure to combat gender pay inequity and also to help job seekers who may have been downsized or may be returning to work after a long hiatus.

The new provision, passed unanimously by a vote of 16 – 0, will bar businesses in Westchester from asking about a job seeker’s previous salary history as a requirement in a job application or interview.

Untethering future earnings from a person’s salary history is an important step in fighting the gender pay gap.  A study by the American Association of University Women in 2013 found that women get paid 6.6 percent less than men in their first jobs. When pay for each subsequent job is tied to prior salaries, that inequity is perpetuated.

But the measure protects more than just female job seekers. Workers, regardless of gender, who leave or lose higher-paying jobs often face resistance from when they’re looking for lower-paying work – work they might really need. Employers might believe they can’t afford the job seeker, or that job seeker will be unhappy or more likely to leave sooner.

Board Chair Ben Boykin said, “This is a crucial step in combatting women’s pay inequality, but it also removes a barrier of discrimination — whether intentional or unintentional — that will help all job seekers, including older workers, or workers who are making career transitions, or those returning to work after raising children, and it will do so at no cost to businesses.”

“Historically, women and people of color have been paid less for the same jobs as men, and that disparity grows exponentially over a career if every salary offered is dependent on the previous job’s pay,” said Legislator Catherine Borgia (D-Ossining), the primary sponsor of the law. “This legislation will level the playing field and ensure that all employees have the same opportunity to make the best salary they can negotiate without reference to what they might have been paid in previous jobs.   Many industries are already eliminating the salary history question in their hiring practices. It’s time for Westchester businesses to do the same.”

Majority Leader Catherine Parker (D-Rye), said, “The Democratic caucus has championed the salary history legislation from its inception because we believe it will give Westchester residents a chance for real parity in wages and will reduce the possibility of conscious or unconscious bias based on gender, race or age.”

Legislator Margaret Cunzio, (R- Mt. Pleasant), stated, “This legislation brings this issue to the forefront and ultimately to a place of fairness.  If you are applying for the same job- you should be treated and compensated the same way- fairly.”

Studies have found that women are less likely to negotiate salaries than men are.  A survey conducted for online job site Glassdoor, found that 68 percent of women seeking jobs accepted the first salary they were offered without negotiating, compared to 52 percent of men, and when they did negotiate, men were more than three times more successful than women in negotiating for higher pay.

Furthermore, the gender negotiation gap appears to increase with age. The same Glassdoor survey found that 77 percent of women 45-54 accepted the first salary they were offered.

Similar measures are already on the books in New York City and in several states, and another such provision is being considered by the state legislature in Albany.

WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. By John F. Bailey. April 9, 2018:

As the WPCNR battery of tax accountants, consultants, financial advisors and legal advisors debated tax strategies prior to filing the WPCNR massive tax return next week, the numbers for the extensive WPCNR properties do not look too intimidating at least for 2018-19.

My tax strategists advise the way the White Plains City Government and the City School District have set up their preliminary budgets for 2018-19 deliver a sustainable pace.

The city is raising property taxes 2.9% and the School District is raising them 2.9%. Both property tax increases are under the tax caps (1% for the city and 2% for the school district).

The City increase ups the tax on  a White Plains median priced home of $650,000 assessed at $16.475/$1,000 of assessed value, $172 to $3,482.

The School District total property tax on that $650,000 home goes up $297 to $10,616.

Add the 2018 County Property Tax for White Plains,(including sewer and garbage) of $2,146.

 The median home of $650,000 will pay $16,244 in property taxes in 2018-19.

The school district  did the residents of White Plains a big service by cutting the rate they raised the budget. Last year the district raised the budget 3%. This year they raised it 2.1% to a total preliminary budget of $218.6 Million. Had they increased it 3% as they did last year, the 2018-19 School Budget would have topped $220 Million ($220.7 Million).

However, depending on how Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to shield the property tax deduction from being limited by President Trump’s new tax law, fairs in the courts, you most likely will pay more federal taxes on your 2018 return than you do this year due to loss of deductibility of state and local property taxes.  Take that $16,244 projected property tax increase for example. Withdeductibility limited to $10,000 in the new tax bill, that decreases the income deduction by $6,000. If you do not allow for that by increasing your withholding  now, you will be scrounging to come up a tax payment. Of course if you’re assessed at more than $17/$1,000 of assessed value the stakes are much higher.

The Trump tax law now in effect is touted as a tax cut for all. It’s not.  It is a massive tax increase on every one who owns a home and is subject to a state income tax.

Looking at the 2019 Westchester County Tax outlook is not positive.

Pressure on the school district and the city will increase next in 2019, to cut spending more when the outcry from the White Plains middle and upper class homeowners see what the Trump Tax Law does to them if they had not planned for the impact.

With the $15 Million surplus in sales collections achieved in 2018, the deficit decried by the County Legislature which prompted the Astorino Airport lease deal has been taken care of with that surplus, if they wanted to use the surplus for that purpose.

The County Board of Legislators which passed all the Astorino administration budgets except the 2018 one, and raised that slightly, is now singing a song of deficit spending about the past eight years.

County Executive George Latimer is having  the state comptroller’s office audit the county budgets. That report is supposed to be in by the end of the year just about budget time.

Perhaps the County Board of Legislators should have paid more attention to Astorino spending the last eight years, after all, they passed his budgets. The County property tax if it raised in White Plains say 10% would go up $214. If it went up 20% it would go up $429—not appreciably egregious.

If the comptroller finds the Astorino administration was able in the comptroller’s  office opinion to hold the line on taxes by creating deficits and unfunded mandates or God knows what, at the expense of services, this could be a license to spend for the County Board of Legislators to “put the county on a prudent financial footing, deliver services badly underfunded.”

If you go by the rationale that county spending should have been increased 3% a year for 7 years, that is a 21% increased one time in the county budget to “put the county on a sound financial footing.”

You have to ask yourself who was looking at the county budget the first seven years of the Astorino administration. The answer is the County Board of Legislators.

Does 21% one-time increase in your lowest tax, the county property tax sound right to you?