Southern Ulster Times, Wednesday, October 11, 2017
3
Clerical error hits Marlboro in the pocketbook
Continued from page 1
settlement that each year reduces their
assessed value and thus lowers the
amount they pay in school taxes. The
settlement reductions will conclude in
2019.
For this year’s tax bill, the Newburgh
Assessor failed to apply the court-ordered
reduction and instead used the previous
year’s figures, resulting in a tax bill for
the plant of $4,130,758 on an assessment
of $50,672,200. Representatives for the
Roseton plant filed for a corrected tax roll
that lowered the their tax bill to $2,907,969
on an assessment of $35,672,200.
All of this leaves the Marlboro School
District in a bind on how to make up
for the unexpected shortfall; either make
cuts of nearly $1.2 million or tap their
fund balance for the amount, an option
the administration and school board
appear to be favoring.
In a prepared statement, Marlboro
School Superintendent Michael Brooks
addressed the impact of the assessor’s
“clerical error.”
“The implications of this mistake
are serious; unless the money can be
recovered through other sources, it
will likely need to be made up by using
existing fund balance and reserves,” he
said, “This will set back the district’s long-
term financial strategy for building up its
Capital Reserve by at least two years.
The Capital Reserve was approved by the
district voters to offset tax implications
for making future facilities improvements
and repairs.”
Brooks noted that while Roseton
received a higher tax bill than expected,
the residents of Marlborough realized
a decrease in their 2017-18 tax bills that
were issued on September 1. Residents
in Marlborough and Plattekill on a home
assessed at $200,000 and with basic STAR
should have paid $166 more in taxes and
those residing in the Town of Newburgh
should have paid an additional $158 in
their taxes.
Brooks said because the tax bills have
already been issued, the district cannot
redistribute the levy using corrected
values.
“The adjusted amounts can be
incorporated into next year’s tax bills,
but this will not recoup the loss from this
year’s revenue,” he said.
Brooks was sharply critical of what
has happened to the district, stressing
that this came as a complete surprise to
him and to the district’s business office.
“We
have
been
strategically
addressing the devaluation of the power
plant for the past five years, making
budget decisions and adjustments to
protect our educational program and to
minimize the impact of the reduced tax
base,” he said. “The loss of [nearly] $1.2
million undermines the hard work that
has gone into creating fiscal stability for
our community.”
Director of Business and Finance
Patrick Witherow said the Town of
Newburgh Assessor and the Orange
County Office of Real Property are
responsible for setting the tax rolls.
“Because of that error we set our tax
levy and sent our tax bills out based on
incorrect data because the county and
the town [of Newburgh] provided us with
the overall valuation from the properties
within the school district that are located
in the Town of Newburgh, the Town of
Marlborough and the Town of Plattekill,”
he said.
Witherow said when the numbers
did not seem quite right he pressed the
Assessor, who assured him that the
numbers were correct. Only later did
Witherow discover the error, saying
the school district was not at fault for
the miscalculation and based their own
numbers on “erroneous information,”
which will short the district by $1,180,945
“ A ll I can say is I’d get
fired if I made a
$1.2 million mistake.”
FRANK MILAZZO
SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
in their tax collection this year.
“That’s a huge hit for us to take because
that is essentially $1.2 million we have to
come up with to fund operations for the
2017-18 school year; we have to fill that
hole,” he said. “We’ve essentially given
back $1.2 million to all the taxpayers in
the district because we were expecting to
raise $34 million and instead only raised
$32.8 million. Its a huge, huge mistake.”
School Board member Frank Milazzo
commented, “All I can say is I’d get fired
if I made a $1.2 million mistake.”
Brooks said he plans to meet with
local, county and state officials to see if
they would be able to assist the district
on what he has described as a “major
discrepancy.”
“I am not passively accepting this
loss without making sure we have done
everything possible to minimize negative
impacts to our schools,” he said. “I will
continue to push for solutions that do not
come at the expense of our students and
community.”
The School Board approved a
resolution from the Orange County Office
of Real Property for a corrected tax bill
for the Roseton Power Plant. Witherow
explained that the school board accepted
the correction because the tax bill was
incorrect and that Roseton was not
responsible for the error.
“There is an 8-day grace period after
the Board of Education accepts the
correction for Roseton to make payment
without any late fee. The longer we wait
to correct a known error in the bill, the
longer we don’t have that revenue ‘in the
bank.’”
Town of Newburgh Assessor Mary
Carhart referred all calls to John
McCarey, Director of the Real Property
Tax Service Agency in Orange County. He
did not return a phone call for comment
on this story by press deadline.