— Schenectady residents, you’re not imagining it. Your taxes really are high.

The city of Schenectady had the highest effective tax rate in the Capital Region in 2013, according to a report released Tuesday by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. The city’s tax rate was $43.58 per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value. Put another way, a Schenectady resident with a home value of $160,250 would have paid $6,984 in property taxes that year.

“We know property taxes are too high,” said Mayor Gary McCarthy. “We’re always looking for ways to cut costs and just be more efficient, and we have. The city’s tax levy is down three-quarters of a percentage point since I’ve been here, so we’re containing costs. But the school district is half the bill.”

The Schenectady City School District filed a complaint against the state in 2013 over its distribution of education aid, arguing the state’s formula for distributing school funding discriminates against districts with high concentrations of minority students. The district gets only 54 percent of the school aid it should receive from the state under the current funding formula, resulting in an estimated $62 million annual shortfall that ultimately inflates the city’s tax rate.

“When the school comes up on the short end of the funding formula, that translates into bottom-line costs for taxpayers,” McCarthy said. “We’re trying to address it. We recognize the problem and are trying to work on it. But it’s a combined effort with other things. Look at the cost of homeownership in the city. It’s actually lower than in suburban areas.”

It doesn’t help that the state has kept its Aid and Incentives for Municipalities funding to municipalities flat in recent years, McCarthy said. Schenectady receives about $11.2 million a year in the unrestricted funding. If it got the extra $5 million a year that the slightly smaller city of Utica gets, property taxes would fall by about 15 percent, he said.

The Empire Center’s annual Benchmarking NY report uses data from the state Comptroller’s Office to calculate effective tax rates — or the total payments made to a county, local municipality and school district as a percentage of a property’s value — for almost every locality in the state. New York City and Nassau County were excluded because they impose different rates on different property classes.

“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 Empire Center Executive Director Tim Hoefer in a news release. “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 Capital Region actually boasted the lowest tax rate among regions in the state in 2013, with a median effective tax rate of $24.68 per $1,000. The nearby Mohawk Valley region had a tax rate of $31.13, just above the state median of $30.60. Western New York had the highest rate in the state, at $35.72.

After Schenectady, the city of Albany had the next highest rate in the region, at $41.67 per $1,000. The village of Scotia ranked third with a rate of $40.78.

Saratoga and Warren counties boasted the lowest rates in the Capital Region in 2013. The town of Edinburg had the region’s lowest rate at $8.96 per $1,000. A town resident with a median home value of $221,700 would have paid $1,986 in property taxes that year.

In the Mohawk Valley, the village of St. Johnsville had the highest effective tax rate of $54.42 per $1,000. A village resident with a home valued at $74,300 would have paid $4,043 that year. The city of Gloversville had the second highest rate at $52.42 per $1,000, or $6,029 for a home valued at $115,000.

Hamilton County boasted the lowest rates in the Mohawk Valley in 2013. The town of Arietta had the lowest rate at $5.57 per $1,000, or just $931 for a home valued at $167,200.

View the full report at https://updates.empirecenter.org or find out how your municipality compares to others across the state with the Empire Center’s Property Tax Calculator at http://seethroughny.net.

By the numbers

The top 10 effective property tax rates (per $1,000 of assessed value) in the Capital Region (as of 2013):

1. Schenectady: $43.58

2. Albany: $41.67

3. Scotia (village): $40.78

4. Green Island (village): $38.93

5. Whitehall (village): $38.77

6. Schodack (village): $38.04

7. Troy: $37.61

8. Rensselaer: $37.35

9. Catskill (village): $36.82

10. Waterford (village): $36.78

Source: Empire Center for Public Policy

© 2015 The Daily Gazette

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