WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From Westchester County Board of Legislators. (Supplemented with additional reporting by WPCNR)July 9,2009: The Westchester County Board of Legislators passed a resolution Tuesday to create the Westchester Collaborative Assessment Commission (WCAC). This resolution was introduced by Legislator Ken Jenkins (D, I, WF – Yonkers), Chairman of the Committee on Government Operations. This action by the County Board is the result of several months of work in committee with the various municipal stakeholders, the Westchester County Tax Commissioner and the NYS Office of Real Property Services. “This resolution is an important first step as we work together with the municipalities to address property tax fairness. For governments at every level, there is no greater issue than addressing property taxes. This is the type of issue where the value and economy of scale County government delivers is highlighted,” said Jenkins.
The Commission as created has no set number of members from each group represented on the Commission, an issue that troubled several legislators on the floor (George Oros, Vito Pinto), who said that without a limit, votes could be stacked. Jenkins dismissed this criticism because the groups involved were professionals with an interest in accurate data, and had worked together to recommend the commission.
.Jenkins in his speech on the floor said that the Commission would upon completion of the database “The final portion of this that theseparameters from the WCAC would then be passed back to the Board of Legislators for its action, whatever action those may happen to be.” He did not specify the nature of the parameters.
It was also stated by Mr. Jenkins that after the aerial photography and oblique photography (photography from the horizontal perspective, not simply overhead) would be conducted first and then incorporated into a county database, accessable to local assessors for up-to-2010 (the photography is expected to be executed in the winter months), views of commercial properties. The photography would be conducted on commercial properties only.
Lloyd Tasch, President of the Westchester Municipal Assessors Association,(and also the City of White Plains Assessor) said at this point he is pleased that the Commission was created and that the main objective will be “getting every municipality’s data up-to-date and on an even keel.” He said it might take as much as a year to complete all the data,(“I’ve seen the way these things go.”) He said the data alone, including the photography piece included into one county accessible system for every assessor would help assessors use commercial data to fight certioraris more efficiently.
He declined to speculate on what parameters the Commission would be looking at in their final recommendations to the Board of Legislators. He said the data piece alone would go a long way towards fighting the certiorari seige. Ken Jenkins, the legislator said that Yonkers had to bond for $19 Million in their budget this year for certirorari refunds, which made up 3% of the 5.6% tax increase in the Yonkers city budget.
Legislator Pete Harckham (D, I, WF – Bedford) said, “The operative word in the Collaborative Assessment Commission is ‘collaborative’. This is a text book model of local municipalities and the County government sharing resources to reduce costs and improve the assessment capabilities at the local level. The State is holding this approach up as a model for other counties to follow.”
Legislator John Nonna (D,I,WF – Pleasantville) said, “The establishment of the Collaborative Assessment Commission is an important step in working with our municipalities to help them create a transparent, fair and equitable assessment process. The creation of a database for commercial and other properties will assist municipalities in establishing sound assessments and reducing certioraris. As a former mayor, I am well aware of the burden the certioraris–return of taxes because of over assessment– places on our municipal governments. This collaborative effort is a classic example of shared service and County government working with its constituent towns, villages and cities to help them fulfill their missions.”
Legislator Bill Burton (D,I,WF – Ossining) said, “This establishment of this Commission shows that Westchester County understands what is necessary to help reduce unfair taxation and bad assessment practice. By using the County’s strengths in data processing and volume purchasing power, Westchester County is helping local officials take steps to make taxes fairer and, ultimately, less onerous.”
The members of the WCAC will be from the Westchester County Tax Commission, the Westchester Municipal Officials Association and the Westchester County Chapter, New York State Assessors Association with the Executive Director of the Westchester County Tax Commission serving as liaison to the County Board. The WCAC will be responsible for the development of a regional model for the collection and maintenance of property data that would be used by local assessing units as the standard for recording the characteristics of every parcel of property in their communities.
Specifically, the WCAC will have the following objectives:
· To develop a model for the recording and maintenance of property data by the municipalities with assessing units which is to result in the design of a property information card with appropriate fields that will standardize all property data in the county for assessment purposes;
· To provide a time and cost estimate for updating the property data to be maintained and utilized by the local assessing unit; and be it further
The resolution also supports the photometry recommended in the Collaborative Assessment Report including oblique aerial photography and street level photography. The resolution establishes a centralized commercial assessment data base to be maintained by the County as recommended in the Collaborative Assessment report.
