NORWICH - Chenango County Treasurer William B. Evans reported sales tax collections were down 5.71 percent for the first two months of 2009.
An analysis of figures comparing 2007 to 2008 showed an average annual decrease of 2.20 percent, or about $409,000 less in gross receipts. The county took in approximately $18.3 million in 2008.
“The fourth quarter last year lifted the lid and proved that we were are going to be going in a different direction that we generally have,” Evans told members of the Finance Committee last week.
He said the nearly six percent drop so far this year was tentative and could be the result of a posting error.
“But it’s trending like this in other regions. This is not news to any of us,” he said.
While legislators were able to budget a bit less in order to fulfill this year’s general funding needs - $6.75 million for 2009 versus $7.3 last year - the downward trend could have a negative impact.” We could be off,” said Finance Committee Vice Chairman Dennis Brown, D-Pharsalia.
The treasurer, however, said he was confident that not only Chenango County, but also its 22 towns were “positioned carefully” to weather the storm with safe margins.
This year’s tax sale is scheduled for June 25th with bid packets available to the public on May 11 for 121 parcels. The final day for delinquent property owners to pay their taxes is April 10.
Also at Finance, Chenango County Real Property Tax Director Steve Harris said equalization rates are anticipated to stay level with last year. The nation’s economic turmoil won’t be reflected until 2010, he said. The director offered a preliminary estimate of rates to members of the committee that showed a spread of 100 in some towns to as low as 40 in others.
Harris said he was working with the New York State’s Real Property Tax Services about putting more field inspectors on the ground in the county’s towns next year in order to better tally sales and determine more accurate local values.
“The state’s computer models are not always the best system to be used in a rural county,” he said, adding that he generally changed 75 percent of the NYSRPS’ computer estimates values for the towns he formerly assessed.
Harris said for the two towns doing revaluations this year, Greene and Coventry, only a dozen individuals had contacted the county’s office with questions on their updates. The Town of Columbus plans an update in 2010.
Pointing to rate comparisons between the Town of Plymouth and his own town, Supervisor Brown said he didn’t understand how doing revaluation projects could be justified.
“We both did revals back in 2001, but their rate dropped 40 points and ours only 20. Back when we did it, peoples’ taxes doubled in Plymouth, but ours stayed about the same. Today, they are further behind than we are. Whose ahead?” he said.
Harris said he was “curious” about vacant land estimates in Plymouth and suggested that some properties listed in the $100,000 range were too high. “Somewhere there’s a disconnect,” he said. He also said some parcels of vacant land in the Town of McDonough might be undervalued.
“Doing a reval on vacant land is the hardest part of to update,” he said.
Town of German Supervisor Richard Schlag said he was “amazed” at how much different prices are in towns that are characteristically similar.
All members of the committee expressed surprise at the shift in value from occupied to vacant land, how land prices have doubled over the past seven years, and remarked that non-local sales had sparked the increase.
“It’s getting unbelievable the prices paid for land,” said Brown.
Harris said the downturn in the market place in the mid 1990s might be the reason. Evans said the methodology of determining rates at the state level had changed over time.