Sullivan lawmakers vote to raise taxes

Bipartisan support for hikes in property sales and room taxes

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Legislature has voted to raise the county portion of property taxes by 3.8 percent in 2006. The increase is significantly less than the seven-percent hike proposed earlier this year.

Legislators said they worked hard to keep the increase down, and were aided by a bookkeeping error. In early November, officials discovered that the county had $4.2 million more in its coffers than previously believed.

“We are in a service industry,” Financial Management Committee Chairman Jonathan Rouis said, at the December 8 budget adoption meeting. Part of that service includes hiking the sales tax by one half percent, and hiking the room tax from two percent to five percent. Both moves require action by Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther and Senator John Bonacic in Albany. Gunther has said she is not enthusiastic about raising any taxes.

County chair Chris Cunningham called the tax increase “a bipartisan decision that came out of many hours of work.”

But not every decision was bipartisan. The most controversial move in this year’s budget process was an effort that split along party lines. Legislators voted five to four to revise the way taxes are assessed in the Town of Neversink. Property taxes there have for years been much lower than other towns in the county because of large amounts of money paid to Neversink because of the Neversink Reservoir. The county has opted to exercise a New York State policy that allows for the sharing of those payments between all of the county’s towns.

The change will lead to a 74- percent increase in the county-portion of real property taxes in Neversink, and a slight reduction in taxes in the 14 other towns. For an $80,000 house, the tax increase in Neversink is about $132, while the decrease elsewhere in the county is about $7.

Cunningham, a Democrat, says it’s an issue of fairness. He wrote in a letter to residents, “It was not fair that every other taxpayer in Sullivan County should have for years had to pay higher property taxes than they should have on comparable properties, while those same properties in Neversink paid less.”

Legislator Leni Binder, a Republican, called her no vote a “protest.” She said she would have preferred to study the matter more before deciding whether or not to make the change.

Other budgetary matters include the formation of a new budget unit that will have an internal auditing function, to ensure that accounting practices are correctly followed, and that department heads stick to their budgets. The creation of the unit comes in the wake of a consultant’s review that found serious problems with the county’s accounting practices.

In announcing the new budget office, Rouis said that no new staffers would be hired to fill the new unit. He said, “We’ve got a lot of good people here.” What’s needed is a restructuring, he said. The new unit will report directly to the legislature, keeping it up to date on a monthly basis.

The budget also includes a $581- per-year raise for legislators, bringing their salaries to $19,768, while chairman Chris Cunningham received a $853 raise bringing his total to $29,040.

For Chris Cunningham’s letter to county residents, click on "Editorial" link.