Lawmakers balk at covering villages’ unpaid taxes

A measure that called for Ulster County to cover delinquent village taxes has died in the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee, and the resolution’s sponsor says he is unsure whether he will try to force the full Legislature to take up the matter.

John Parete, D-Boiceville, said he hasn’t decided if he will try to move the proposal — which has received only lukewarm support from the Legislature — out of the committee using a procedural move known as a “petition to discharge.”

“I don’t know,” Parete said. “I’m just disappointed it didn’t get to the floor.”

The idea of having Ulster County reimburse the county’s three villages for unpaid village taxes, as it currently does for towns and school districts, is not new. Similar proposals were unsuccessfully floated in the Legislature in 2002 and 2014.

While village officials — and some county lawmakers — have lobbied for a takeover, most legislators

are reluctant to take on the additional cost.

Currently, towns and school districts are assured of getting the full amount of their annual tax levies, and any shortfalls due to unpaid property taxes are paid to those entities by the county, which must then initiate legal proceedings, usually through a tax sale, to recoup the taxes owed.

But the villages of Ellenville, New Paltz and Saugerties, as well as the city of Kingston, are exempt from this arrangement.

The situation is most dire in Ellenville, where some estimates put the amount

of back taxes owed the village at about $1.5 million. Democratic Legislator T.J. Briggs, whose district includes Ellenville, said the unpaid tax levy in the community is so high because the village makes no effort to collect unpaid taxes.

Under Parete’s proposal, the county would be responsible for covering only unpaid taxes going forward, it would not be required to make good on the taxes now owed, Parete said.

Legislature Chairman Ken Ronk, R-Wallkill, said with the county in the running for a state grant to look at, among other things, the dissolution of the village of Ellenville, now is not the time to be considering the measure.