Unpaid village tax compensation proposal returned to committee
A proposal that would require the county to compensate the villages for unpaid municipal taxes finally made it to the floor of the Ulster County Legislature Tuesday, but was promptly sent back to committee for further discussion.
Lawmakers voted 20-3 to refer the controversial measure back to the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee after Ulster County Legislator Herbert Litts, R-Lloyd, said he still had “several questions ... that have not been answered to my satisfaction.”
The Ways and Means Committee in July defeated the resolution, but sponsor John Parete forced the proposal out of committee through a procedural move by filing a motion to discharge.
Currently, Ulster County guarantees towns and school districts their full property tax levy by paying any shortfalls due to unpaid property taxes. The county must 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 that arrangement, meaning the villages must initiate their own proceedings to collect the taxes on which their budgets are based. Ulster County is one of only two counties in the state that does not reimburse villages for unpaid taxes.
Prior to the Legislature’s vote, Ellenville Village Administrator Joseph Stoeckler, a former county lawmaker, appealed to legislators to approve the resolution, saying any additional cost to the county would be negligible.
The village of Ellenville is currently owed roughly $1.5 million in back taxes. Parete’s proposal would not have made good on the outstanding back taxes, but would have reimbursed the village for any unpaid taxes going forward.
The idea has been bandied about for some time, with similar proposals unsuccessfully floated in 2002 and 2014. But while village officials — and some county lawmakers — have lobbied for a takeover, other county legislators have said they are reluctant to take on the additional cost.