Panel delays action on dealing with unpaid village taxes

It may not have much of a chance of passing the full Ulster County Legislature, but a local law that would have the county assume responsibility for unpaid village taxes was kept alive Tuesday when members of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee postponed action on the measure until November.

It was the second time the committee delayed voting on the measure, which it defeated earlier this year and is the latest twist in the monthslong effort by Legislator John Parete to have the county reimburse the three villages for unpaid village taxes, as it currently does for towns and school districts.

Committee members postponed action on the measure in September in order to hear from village of Ellenville officials who would be affected by the law. Despite promises that someone from the village would be at Tuesday’s meeting, no one showed.

“We raise all these questions all the time,” said Tracey Bartels, a nonenrolled legislator from Gardiner. “We had a public hearing where no one from the village showed up. If something is really pressing, wouldn’t you think someone from the village would be here?”

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Gerentine, who opposes the proposed takeover, agreed to postpone the measure one more time, but said in November, he expected committee members to “act on it one way or another.”

In July, after months of discussion, the committee defeated the measure, blocking it from going to the full Legislature.

Parete forced it to the floor in August using a procedural move known as a “petition to discharge,” but it was promptly sent back to committee for further discussion after legislators said they still had unanswered questions.

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.

The villages of Ellenville, New Paltz and Saugerties, as well as the city of Kingston, are exempt from that arrangement, which means the villages and city 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.

The idea has been bandied about for some time in Ulster County, with similar proposals unsuccessfully floated in 2002 and 2014.

If the measure is again defeated in the Ways and Means Committee, Parete could force the matter to the floor a second time, and the Legislature would be required to take an up-or-down vote.