Overtaxed and Underserved
Did you know the City of Mount Vernon lost over $300,000 in just 20 minutes? Recently, the city paid out more than $300,000 in tax certiorari proceedings, authorized by the City Council President and Comptroller Maureen Walker in just one meeting. So what is a tax certiorari proceeding? It’s a complex legal maneuver that lets property owners challenge how much they are being taxed and, if successful, lower their tax rate. Since these proceedings often require attorneys, most homeowners never get the chance to use them. Instead, commercial property owners, who are already powerful, take advantage of the system and get to lower their taxes even more.
Every year, Mount Vernon budgets over $1.5 million for this process, and that’s $1.5 million too much. It’s time to put that money to use to benefit the whole community. The best way to do this is by a “revaluation”. A revaluation is a process by which a city looks at all the properties within its borders, looks at the true value of each property, and redistributes the burden fairly so people pay what their property is truly worth. The process also makes defending the city’s tax assessments in court much easier, meaning businesses will be far less likely to win a tax certiorari suit. Best of all, a revaluation costs less than what the city is already spending on tax certiorari. This is like saying you could pay $10,000 each year, for the next twenty years, to repair water damage in your home or pay $5,000 once to fix your leaky roof. The numbers don’t lie. A “reval” means taxpayers save money and the city saves money! It’s a win, win and creates a level playing field for all homeowners.
Mount Vernon has been overtaxed and underserved for far too long. The bulk of Mount Vernon’s tax burden needs to come off the shoulders of our homeowners and renters. We must grow our industrial and commercial base and spur our economy. That’s why we have strategically activated our Industrial Development Agency to support our economy and boost our permitting and inspection processes. Our economy must move faster and our homeowners need immediate relief. It doesn’t take a CPA to figure out that spending $1.5 million on programs that don’t benefit the people of Mount Vernon is bad accounting.
Click here to see Tuesday’s Board of Estimate and Contract meeting and skip to 13:20 to see the conversation on tax certiorari.
Originally Published in Westchester County Press — August 22, 2017
