Supervisor Feiner's Deliberately Deceiving Message and Misinformation Re Town Taxes- THERE IS NO TAX DECREASE THIS YEAR
Hello Greenburgh,
I consider the below to be one of the most important emails I've sent so while I apologize for it's length, please read, forward and let me know your thoughts.
Town Tax Rate
On Wednesday evening, Paul Feiner sent out a GB List email and posted on social media with the subject "largest tax rate REDUCTION in memory 6% rate reduction". That headlines is deliberately misleading and Trumpian in it's level of misinformation. The headline and message from Supervisor Feiner implies to the public that taxes are going down by 6%, but as you can see from the below screenshot of page 12/13 of the budget, taxes in both the A and B budgets are staying absolutely flat. (Here is a link to the budget).
Total taxes raised by the Town Board are going to be flat year over year, there is no tax decrease, only the tax rate is going down. THERE IS NO MASS TOWN WIDE TAX DECREASE.
Supervisor Feiner's email is not an outright lie, the tax rate is going down by 6%, however the only reason that is happening is because of the massive assessment increases applying to this years tax rolls. This is the definition of misinformation and something I would expect out of the Trump organization. To further explain if this is unclear, and it is complicated; let's start with a quick but necessary explanation of taxes and how the tax rate is determined.
To start, the calculation has 3 data inputs, the dollar value of taxes to be raised by the municipality (I’ll use town as an example), the taxable value of your home, and the value of all other taxable properties in the Town. Once the Town has determined how much money needs to be raised in taxes, the tax rate is determined, and you pay your % of the overall property value in the town. So if there are 10 properties in the town each worth $1mm($10mm total), and the Town needs to raise $500k in taxes, the rate is 5% or 500k(taxes to be raised)/$10mm(total assessable value). Then each home pays taxes based on their assessment. So an individual would pay $50k in taxes or $1mm(home value)*5%(tax rate)=$50k. Further details here in my blog post from 2019 on this same subject.
Nobody cares what the tax rate is they care about their tax levy, or how much they actually have to pay in taxes. So to explain what is actually happening lets use an example. See below, where similar to Greenburgh assessments increased by 10% in 2022 and taxes stayed flat. In both 2021 and 2022 the town is raising 100k in taxes. The tax rate is decreasing by 9% however because of the assessment increases. Would anyone at all reading this advertise this as a property tax decrease!! Of Course not!
I am disappointed in Supervisor Feiner for publishing this blatantly misleading information and in the Town Board for not correcting him. If you feel the same way, I encourage you to tell the tell the Town Board- TownBoard@greenburghny.com
Budget Shenanigans
I'll be writing more on this in the coming week but I encourage everyone to watch the Town Board meeting from Monday. There are multiple allegations against Supervisor Feiner and the Town Clerk regarding untracked spending, secret accounts, and budget irregularities.
I am calling for a fully independent and complete investigation into these allegations and an independent audit of how funds are spent and audited. I believe this is only the surface of budget shenanigans at Town Hall.
Link to the meeting The budget discussion begins about 1 minute in.
Other Items
Fire District Elections- Hartsdale Fire District's Bond Referendum Failed by a vote of No 149, Yes 63.
Marijuana Zoning- The Town Board overrode the Planning Boards unanimous recommendation against the proposed zoning update regarding recreational marijuana dispensaries and passed unanimously a resolution on the new rules.
Hopefully, you have found this informative. Please send any questions and forward to your friends and neighbors. If you have questions about any of the above, please email me at Eric@ericzinger.com
Eric Zinger
www.ericzinger.com