Schenectady city residents had the highest effective property tax rate in the Capital Region, paying $46.20 per $1,000 of home value during 2014, according to the newest edition of Benchmarking NY, the Empire Center’s annual examination of local property taxes.
“There’s no question that New Yorkers pay some of the highest property taxes in the country, but the burden can vary widely even among neighboring jurisdictions,” said Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center. “By making it easier to compare taxes in different localities, we hope to encourage local taxpayers and elected officials to search for ways of reducing taxes and spending.”
The lowest effective tax rate in the Capital Region was $9.19 per $1,000 levied on homes and businesses in the Saratoga County town of Edinburg falling within the Edinburg school district.
In terms of tax bills on the median-value home in a community, Niskayuna had the region’s highest, at $8,290. The lowest tax bill on a median-value home, $1,035, was found in the Greene County town of Ashland within the Windham-Ashland-Jewett school district.
Users can see the components of their local property taxes and compare property taxes in multiple communities using the Empire Center’s Property Tax Calculator, a tool on SeeThroughNY.net, the Center’s transparency website.
Benchmarking NY uses data from the Office of the State Comptroller to calculate effective tax rates–combined county, municipal and school taxes as a percent of market value–for thousands of localities across the state during 2014, excluding only New York City and Nassau County. The complete report, posted here, includes a list of the top and bottom 20 effective tax rates and the top and bottom 20 tax bills on a locality’s median-value home in each of nine regions.
The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies to make New York a better place to live, work and do business.
About the Author
You may also like
Episode 34: Introducing Z
In this episode of Messages of Necessity, Kyle Davis, Director of Public Affairs at the Empire Center, has a conversation with the organization's new Executive Director, Zilvinas Silenas (also known as Z). Together, they delve into Silenas's background an Read More
One of New York’s Biggest Medicaid Contractors Is Quietly Acquiring a Competitor
Author's note: This post has been updated to correct an error in the second paragraph.
As state lawmakers debate the future of Medicaid home care, one of the program's bigg Read More
The Union Gave Them the Wrong Data. The Pols Cited It Anyway.
The episode shows the extent to which New York elected officials fail to question the state’s public employee unions—or look at data themselves. Read More
New York’s Home Health Workforce Jumped by 12 Percent in One Year
New York's home health workforce has continued its pattern of extraordinary growth, increasing by 62,000 jobs or 12 percent in a single year, according to newly released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read More
Episode 33: Pension Problems
In this episode of "Messages of Necessity," Cam Macdonald and Ken Girardin dive into the contentious debate surrounding New York's public pensions. Unraveling myths and confronting harsh realities, they analyze the union's arguments for retroactively swee Read More
New York’s wilting economy continued to underperform the U.S. last year
New York's economy barely grew in 2023, trailing far behind stronger growth rates in the national economy and almost all other states, according to real gross domestic product (GDP) estimates by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Real GDP in the Read More
Teacher Pensions Added to SeeThroughNY Include 25 Over $300K
New York’s two teacher pension systems last year had 25 retirees eligible to collect pensions of more than $300,000, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Read More
While New York’s Medicaid Budget Soared, Public Health Funding Languished
Four years after a devastating pandemic, the state has made no major investment to repair or improve its public health defenses.
While funding for Medicaid over the past four years Read More