Towns Increase Tax Rates

All but two of the twenty towns in Dutchess County have increased their tax rates in 2010, compared with 2009 rates.  This fact is Bad News for property taxpayers, because the tax rate measures how steeply your wealth — as measured by the value of your property — is taxed.  Do you know how much your town's tax rate has increased?  And do you know how your town stands relative to other towns in Dutchess County?  This post compares the town tax rate increases for Dutchess County.

First the Good News:  Two towns in Ductchess County held the line on taxes, or even decreased them:  The Town of North East has maintained essentially the same tax rate as last year, and the Town of Rhinebeck managed a small (0.4 percent) tax decrease.  Well, that's the end of the good news.

Data:  Most data for this post are from a table I compiled based on tax rate information from the county government's Real Property Tax Service Agency, as explained here.  For towns containing villages, I've compiled only the tax rates for outside the villages, marked with suffix “- o”.  For towns containing separate homestead and non-homestead (commercial) rates, I've compiled only the homestead rates, marked with suffix “- h”.  For the Towns of Beekman and Red Hook, I've augmented the official tax rate increases to more fairly indicate the effective tax rate increase, as described in detail below.

Now the bad, worse, and worst news:  The towns of Wappinger, Red Hook, Stanford, Poughkeepsie, Clinton, and Fishkill have tax rate increases of between 2 and 4 percent.  Not too bad.  The towns of Dover, Washington, East Fishkill, and Pine Plains have tax rate increases of between 5 and 10 percent.  Bad.  The towns of Amenia, LaGrange, Hyde Park, and Beekman have tax rate increases of between 12 and 15 percent.  Really bad.  The towns of Union Vale, Pleasant Valley, and Milan have tax rate increases of between 16 and 20 percent.  Worse than bad.  But the worst news of all is the Town of Pawling, which wins the bad-news contest with a whopping 28.4 percent tax rate increase.  I'll post separately about Pawling's situation.  Here are the results in chart form:

Town of Beekman's Cost Shifting 

Technically, the Town of Beekman's tax rate has decreased by 0.7 percent, as shown here.  However, this figure is misleading from a taxpayer's viewpoint, because beginning in 2010, Beekman has shifted the $319,800 cost of its ambulance service from the Town to the Beekman Fire District.  This means that the same taxpayers who paid for the ambulance service through Town taxes in 2009 now pay this cost through fire district taxes.  To determine the effective tax rate increase for Beekman's taxpayers, we need to add the $319,800 back into the Town's tax levy.  The result is an effective tax rate increase for the Town of Beekman of 14.6 percent, as shown in orange in the above chart.

If I were analyzing tax rate increases for fire districts (which I should probably do, considering the name of this blog), I'd observe that technically, the Beekman Fire District's tax rate has increased by 42.0 percent.  However, this figure is misleading from a taxpayer's viewpoint, because the same taxpayers who paid the “extra” $319,800 fire taxes in 2010 paid a similar cost in 2009 through their Town taxes.  So to be fair to the Beekman Fire District, the effective fire tax rate change is actually a small (0.7 percent) decrease.

Town of Red Hook's Cost Shifting 

Technically, the Town of Red Hook's tax rate has decreased by 10.5 percent, as shown here.  However, this figure is misleading from a taxpayer's viewpoint, because beginning in 2010, Red Hook has shifted the $145,000 cost of the Red Hook Library and the $125,00 cost of the Tivoli Library from the Town to two new library line items on the tax bill.  All property taxpayers in the Town of Red Hook pay both of these new library line items in addition to the Town line item, regardless of where in the Town they live.  You read that right.  (Just to confuse things further, these two new library line items are in addition to yet another Red Hook Library line item associated with the Rhinebeck School District. The Rhinebeck school district library line item has been paid by all Red Hook property taxpayers since 2005, along with their school taxes.)

This cost shifting means that the same taxpayers who paid for the Red Hook and Tivoli libraries through Town taxes in 2009 now pay this cost through separate line items on their tax bills.  To determine the effective tax rate increase for Town of Red Hook taxpayers, we need to add the two new library tax levies back into the Town's tax levy (after prorating to account for the villages).  The result is an effective tax rate increase for the Town of Red Hook of 2.4 percent, as shown in orange in the above chart.

Other Misleading Tax Rate Increases?

It's entirely possible that towns other than Beekman and Red Hook have their own cost shifting stories which make their nominal tax rate increases misleading.  I have not examined the situations in most towns.  Readers are encouraged to bring such situations to my attention.

Poughkeepsie Journal's Tax Rate Increase Table Is Flawed

To the Poughkeepsie Journal's credit, it published a feature story on January 11-th tabulating the tax rate increases of all Dutchess County towns.  Unfortunately, numerous mistakes in this tabulation, documented here, here, and here, make the Journal's tabulation unreliable.  This post attempts to correct the record.

Why are property taxes going up?

Thoughtful observers will probably not even be asking this question.  The 2008 economic meltdown was global and comprehensive.  It has worsened economic life in 97 different ways for taxpayers, workers, businesses, and, yes, local governments.  As I see it, local governments are just additional victims of the 2008 economic meltdown.