Recording Tax issue for Ossining Unincorporated Town Residents!!!

The Mortgage Recording Tax is a fee that is assessed against people when they buy a house. As so many other fees are. When that happens the money that is from all of the municipalities is sent to the County.

The County then takes its cut and per a formula, redistributes the money back to the respective municipalities from which the houses were sold. In this scenario, based on the comptroller's opinion, the Village of Ossining, the Village of Briarcliff, and the Town General all receive a cut.

However the Unincorporated Town does NOT receive its fair share of the cut even though houses are bought and sold from our particular area.

Because our makeup is different than almost any other town, during the past 2 years one of our Town Board members has requested, that we ask our legislators for a home-rule legislation that would allow a cut of this Fee / Tax to be sent to the Unincorporated Town Fund.

Based on previous figures, that comes out to be about $80,000. The majority of the board on the past two previous boards have refused to go ahead and do so. The citizens of the Unincorporated Town need to demand a change from how this is handled since it is simply NOT FAIR!

In last year's budget the Town Board Members shifted a portion of salaries of certain individuals who work for the Town onto the Unincorporated Town. This included 33% of the attorneys, 33% of the confidential secretary, and 33% of the budget director, with the argument that all of those individuals spend a portion of their time only working on issues with respect to the Unincorporated Town. It was the first time that has ever been done.

This year they are changing it in the budget so that it is 50% of the attorney, and 40% of the budget director salaries to be taken from the Unincorporated Town Fund. The confidential secretaries will be now 70% Town General and 30% from Dale Cemetery because she works on issues specific the Cemetery.

I personally have no problem with a fair division of where funds should be taken, but if that is the argument, then it is only fair that we get our fair share of the mortgage recording tax.

Because one of our Town Board members has pushed the issue for so long and consistently it is now being considered for this budget.

We need our concerned neighbors, especially from the Unincorporated Town, to help highlight this issue and show up at the below meeting this Wednesday evening or send emails to the board members pointing out how unfair this handling of the Mortgage Recording Tax is at this time.

Town Board Regular Meeting and Work Session

Wednesday, November 9th- 7:30PM

Birdsall-Fagan Police/Court Facility

86-88 Spring Street, Ossining NY 10562

Executive Session, 6:30PM

pdf 11-9-2016 Agenda (102 KB)

pdf Town Voucher Detail 11-9-2016 (359 KB)

Work Session: Mortgage Recording Tax Allocation

All Board Meetings are televised LIVE on GO-TV, on Channel 78. Taped shows are repeated every Thursday at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Channels 78 and 18.

Watch the live webcast of Ossining Government Access Cablevision Channel 78 and Verizon Channel 43, including Town and Village Board Meetings, or stream them LIVE here.

Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any of your family, friends, acquaintances, or business associates who may have an interest in these, as well as other Town subjects.

Supervisor: Dana Levenberg: DLevenberg@townofossining.com

Council members:

Kim Jeffrey: jeffrey@townofossining.com

Northern Wilcher Jr: Wilcher@townofossining.com

Karen D’Attore: dattore@townofossining.com

Liz Feldman: feldman@townofossining.com

Budget Officer:

Madaline Zachacz: MZachacz@townofossining.com

pdf 2017 Tentative Budget Publication (327 KB)

pdf 2017 Proposed Fee Schedule (41 KB)

pdf 2017 Tenatative Budget Summary (7 KB)

pdf 2017 Tentative Budget BAN Schedule (7 KB)

pdf 2017 Tentative Budget Detail (8 KB)

pdf 2017 Tentative Budget Bonded Debt (10 KB)

pdf 2017 Capital Plan (15 KB)

pdf 2017 Tentative Serial Bond Payment Schedule (7 KB)

Howard Jay Fleischer