Serving the people

Dear Editor: On the last three business days of the year, like countless thousands of other American taxpayers, I found myself scrambling to soften the impact on my family of the ill-conceived tax “reform” legislation that breezed through Congress with hand-written notes in the margins and nary a word of public debate.

On Dec. 27, I went to City Hall in Kingston to see how to go about prepaying our 2018 property taxes, an option that had just been provided to New York taxpayers by Gov. Cuomo.

I went into the Assessor’s Office on the first floor, and they were in the process of directing me upstairs to the Tax Department when a man to my left, who had been in conversation with them, said simply, “I can help you. Follow me.” As we walked, he introduced himself as John Tuey, the city comptroller.

Tuey explained that he and his staff had been working diligently for the past several days to make it possible for Kingston residents to prepay their taxes. He said the city gets its tax numbers from the county and they had just received them that morning, but that his staff had found an error in them, and the numbers had to be reconciled. He said the city uses a third party for some aspects of the billing and they had to get that squared away as well. But he said they had managed to get it all done and were now ready to accept 2018 payments.

Tuey took me to the tax office, went behind the counter, and personally printed my 2018 tax bill. I came back on Friday and paid it. The staff was friendly and helpful. I got the sense that they were fully aware that this was an important service they were providing to the citizens of Kingston and they were happy to do it.

Dr. B.F. Battistoli, Kingston