On May 9, 2005 tax experts of Haverstraw and Stony Point, USA came up with predictions that real estate property owners of both of the towns will get their land taxes changed in 2006. At the same time tax people of Ramapo are not sure yet whether the town will get its tax updates ready by 2006.
Three above-mention US towns have started to revalue their residential and commercial property yet in 2004. That meant “to stabilize tax bills and ensure property owners pay their fair share”.
John O'Shaughnessey, the tax expert of Stony Point, USA announced that town has already had about 45% of its files updated and each property items is to be checked before the evaluation is over.
It costs 20 USD Haverstraw and Stony Point, USA to review each parcel excluding parcels under Mirant New York ownership. Texas federal bankruptcy court will assess power plants company owns in north Rockland, USA as well as property tax payable by Mirant.
David Adams, tax expert of Haverstraw, mentioned that almost 90% of town real estate properties had already been photographed and preliminary assessments would be ready by the end of 2005.
According to Edward McLaughlin, Garnerville based 70-year-old retired printer, the reassessments are most likely to hurt people planning like him keep their homes.
"It's not going to do me a bit of good," he said. "It's just going to cost me more. I don't care if you tell me my house is worth $10 million. I'm not going anywhere, so it's only on paper," he added.
On that matter Adams commented that despite the fact of drastic changes in property values taxes would remain the same due to the tax rates adjustments. "The town would raise the same amount of money," he said.
Haverstraw and Stony Point count on data obtained by Sabre Systems, the consultant the county hired for reassessment of about 84000 property items in Rockland area. In spite of almost 4 million USD spent on the reassessment project the data collected was not quite accurate leaving five towns in the area to think on “how to finish the job and how to pay for it”. Industrial and Utility Valuation Consultants from Albany were hired to get the job finished.
To get the county data updated and 27000 town parcels updated Ramapo has spent 270000 USD. Ramapo was endowed 54000 USD for reassessment works by Office of Real Property Services. Meanwhile, Scott Shedler, Ramapo Assessor doubts the reassessment to be finished on time. Ramapo Town board came up with a revaluation plan and hired a consultant to value each parcel. “Town now has pictures of every parcel and is about 80 percent done comparing the Sabre data with the town's property information”, he added.
Mr. Shedler mentioned that revaluation process was slowed down by the annual tax complaints recording procedure. Ramapo receives around 1000 complaints per year, which last about two months to be resolved.
At the same time Orangetown and Clarkstown, USA do not mean to reassess their property values soon.
Thom Kleiner , Orangetown Supervisor said the town has the most recent property values (1987 data) and it’s not a top urgency task to get them changed. "It's not saying we shouldn't do it, just we're dealing with other land-use issues", he added.
Orangetown Tax Assessor Brian Kenney said that they are expecting revaluation results in Ramapo, Haverstraw and Stony Point before Orangetown starts its own.
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