Who Butters our Bread?

Who pays the highest property taxes in the village?

I ask this question not in order to point fingers at any particular institution, but in order that our administration might confer recognition and perhaps better support for this sector of our community. Currently, this sector labors under the most onerous local tax burden, which might discourage further investments.

Two facts determine the property-tax burden within the village. The first is whether a property belongs on the tax-exempt roll (tax roll 8) or not.  Institutions that are on tax roll 8, like  hospitals, colleges & public schools and churches, pay no property taxes (and their property values tend to be asymmetrically high).  The second fact is the property’s assessed value. If the property is not on tax roll 8, its owner will be required to pay her share of the village-board’s mandated tax levy. Currently, our tax rate is about $18 for each thousand dollars of assessed value. If the property, for example, is assessed at $100,000 its owner must pay $1,800 in property taxes. If the property is worth 10 times as much, one million dollars, its local property tax will be $18,000. Everyone who owns property in the village and is not operating a tax-exempt business, pays the same tax rate of $18 per thousand dollars of assessed value (barring a few  tax exemptions for some).

So then the question of who pays the highest property tax in the village turns into the question of which property within the village has the highest assessed value?  Is it the Price Chopper Plaza? No. Is it a bank or a car dealership? No.  When you ask around, I find it surprising how laws get enacted and local tax-rates set, without this being common knowledge.  In fact, the highest property tax is paid not by a commerce business at all, but an apartment complex. In fact, in the top ten most valued properties within the village, there are several apartment complexes, as well as a commercial enterprise, a tourism enterprise, and, surprisingly, a green energy enterprise.

The point I hope to stress here, is that we should all have the good sense to know who butters our bread. As I have discussed in an earlier blog post, when the village switched to an EDU-based water and sewer fee system, the tax burden on apartment owners increased disproportionately. Why? Because each apartment in the complex now pays a hefty water and sewer rent, whether the apartment is occupied or empty.  So apartment complex owners pay both higher property taxes since apartment complexes are expensive and then in addition they pay a greater fixed share of the water and sewer tax fees.  

We need apartments. My husband moved into Meadow East in 1987 upon arriving in Potsdam, before we found our house.  Now, we would like to downsize again, to a high-end apartment. But as has been pointed out to me by several friends, and I now discover for myself, there are no high-end apartment complexes in the village-most apartment complexes are in the tax-exempt category that may not accept individuals in higher income brackets. Others are geared towards students or temporary laborers, whether nurses or teaching associates.  At this time there is nary an option for retiring boomers who prefer to live in town. Creating a more tax-friendly environment for apartment complex owners strikes me as an important objective for the village.