Chairman Wolfe Calls January Property Tax Bills "Confusing and Misleading"

New City, NY (January 6, 2015) - The Chairman of the Rockland County Legislature Alden H. Wolfe is assuring the public that the 2015 County property tax increased by only 1.9%, as promised when the County Legislature overwhelming adopted the 2015 budget on December 4th of last year. Wolfe is concerned that the 2015 Town and County Tax bills arriving in mailboxes this week may mislead property owners into believing that County taxes increased by almost 6%, well above the State’s two percent tax cap and dramatically above the actual County tax increase of 1.9%. The 2015 County budget approved by the Legislature set the county’s property tax levy of $107,978,376, a 1.9% increase ($2,018,209) over the 2014 levy of $105,960,167.

The misleading information, explained Chairman Wolfe, is due to the arbitrary division of the total County property tax levy into two lines - “County Property Tax” and “NYS Medicaid Tax.” This was an effort started by the prior administration to comply with the requirements of the Rockland County Mandate and Taxation Information Act and Rockland County Taxation Transparency Act, both passed by the Legislature in 2012 and intended to inform taxpayers about the impact of state mandates on local taxation. The legislation required the inclusion of summary, narrative and graphical information regarding state mandates, but was never complied with because the County does not print its own property tax bills. Wolfe said that, “The use of a separate line on the tax bill denoted ‘NYS Medicaid Tax’ has confused and mislead property taxpayers since its implementation in 2013, most particularly because there is no such thing as a NYS Medicaid Tax.”

In November of 2014, Wolfe and other colleagues held a public discussion during Budget Review and advised the Commissioner of Finance and the Administration that they felt that the issue should be corrected and the two lines combined, so as to give an accurate picture of the County property tax levy. The efforts were rebuffed by the Administration. By the time the Legislature was presented with the tax levy resolutions at the end of the year, the Towns had already printed the property tax bills and the correction would have caused additional expense to County residents. At the final Legislature meeting held on December 29, 2014, Wolfe advised those present that this is an issue that must be addressed in 2015.

Wolfe added, “I remain committed to ensuring that complete, accurate and wholly transparent information is available to the public at all times, and intend to resolve the issue this year.”

Wolfe has requested that the 2015 Adopted Rockland County Budget be made available to the public on the County’s web site, www.rocklandgov.com.

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