- By Dan Veaner
- News
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If you are a Lansing homeowner who lives outside the Village of Lansing you almost certainly received a Notice of Assessment Change from Tompkins County this week. Lansing Supervisor Ed LaVigne was quick to remind property owners that the higher assessment should mean a lower tax rate this year, which would mean the rise in your taxes would be about the same as it would have been if property values remained the same. All things being equal, that would be true, but while reassessment means lower taxes for some, it also means higher taxes for others."We made about 10,500 changes in assessment and had a $500 million increase in value in the county," says Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin. "This is a value increase and will not translate into a taxable value increase. Some of the increase was in Cornell and some were in farmland which NYS sets a taxable value regardless of our assessment. The value typically would go up between 5% to 15%. About 500 of the changes were decreases."
In order of highest to lowest taxes, the taxing authorities Lansing residents are beholding to are the Lansing or Ithaca school districts, Tompkins County, The Town of Lansing, and The Lansing Fire District. Residents whose property lies within the Lansing school district also pay a tax to the Lansing Community Library, and those who have property in the Village of Lansing pay a tax to that government.
| The dollar amount property owners pay is the product of three elements: your property assessment, the tax levies and the tax rates. Property Assessment: Tompkins County assigns a value to every real property within its jurisdiction. It also provides each taxing authority the total of dollar value of all the properties within its taxing district. Tax Levy: Each taxing authority whose district you fall in decides what they need to operate for a year. Then they figure out where all that money will come from. One of those sources is your wallet. The part that comes from your wallet is the tax levy, or the amount to be raised by taxes. Tax Rate: If you split up the total tax levy by the number of chunks of $1,000 value in the whole district, the resulting number is the tax rate. Example: If you need to raise a tax levy of $100 and you have $10,000 worth of properties in your district, the owner of each thousand dollars worth of value would have to pay one tenth, or $10 (the tax rate). If your home is worth $3,000 in this scenario your tax bill will be $300. Obviously that is simplified for this example. |
| "If an assessment went up, I highly encourage people to contact their bank if they have an escrow account to have that payment adjusted by the bank," says Director of Assessment Jay Franklin. "If a property doesn't do so, the shortage for the current year will have to be made up next year causing a 'double whammy' for a year." | ||
But it is new construction that provides relief to existing property taxpayers. Franklin reports that $12,427,500 of the $71,789,521 difference between last year and this year to date is new construction. That is good for existing property owners, because the tax burden is shared by more taxpayers. That means that $59,362,021 of the rise is due to reassessment of existing properties.
"This number will change as I'm sure we have more new construction to pick up this year," Franklin explains. "We had a snap shot of what is there as of March 1, 2016 and we don't always have all that information input into our system when we produce this 'preliminary roll'. The County had a $112.479,200 physical increase (of which $37 million was a value added to a piece of land owned by Cornell). Of course this will change for the reason above too."
| Lakefront Properties - More or Less Valuable? Excerpt from a report from Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin to the County Government Operations Committee for a meeting scheduled for today: "The lake still remains a challenge in this town. The fact that the railroad runs adjacent to the lake has caused a lot of confusion and uncertainty as to the ownership and even use of the lake front for what are lake front properties. The railroad has notified a few property owners of their intent to block or require a license to cross railroad property. More than a handful of sales have fallen through over the questionable ownership of the lake front. This question of ownership has caused seasonal cottages to sell for more than year‐around residences based strictly upon the feeling of the new owner in regards to how strictly the railroad will/will not enforce any encroachment violations. "While we have read every single deed that is along the lake, every deed has (or has omitted from a prior deed) language to the extent that transferred 'any land if any such exists to the westerly side of the railroad track'. We are seriously considering removing all properties from the 'lakefront' neighborhood in response to the questionable ownership of the lakefront however we are not going to be reducing the values when doing so as the lakefront is obviously used by the properties adjacent to them based upon the size of the docks, cottages etc that are placed on the land whose ownership is in question." | ||
"A home valued at $200K at $21.51 tax rate (the 2015/16 tax rate) paid around $4,302 this year," she says. "A home valued at $200K at $21.30 tax rate (estimated 2016/17 tax rate) will pay around $4,260. Now, that allowable growth factor of 1.42% is for the total assessed value of Lansing property. It includes new construction."
"But if a home that's value increases by 1.42% from 200K to $202,840, and the tax rate is $21.30, will pay around $4,320," she continues. "The home value increases by 1%, from $200K to $202,000, the tax rate is $21.30, and the homeowner will pay $4,302. Using that logic, anything in which the value increases by more than 1% will pay more in taxes, even at the estimated rate of $21.30. Anything in which value increases by less than 1% will pay less in taxes. Just to clarify, when I receive the tax rolls in July I re-estimate the tax rate based on that number against our tax cap levy."
She adds that the total assessed value in the school district has typically been higher than the projections the New York State Comptroller's office uses, which puts downward pressure on the tax rate. The pool of contributing property value shares the tax burden, lowering taxes for some property owners.
Tompkins County has over 35,200 parcels of real property with a total market value of approximately $11.6 billion. Franklin said homes in the Town of Lansing, Town of Dryden, City of Ithaca, West Hill in Town of Ithaca, Trumanburg, apartments and a few smaller commercial types of properties were reassessed this year. The County values homes at 100% of their value, and tries to constantly maintain a uniform percentage of value. According to the Department of Assessment, there were 804 home sales in Tompkins County last year, the average home sale price being $228,442. The average home sale price has risen almost every year in the past two and a half decades, though the number of home sales has varied
"We revalue each year and the amount of work for each year is determined by the level of activity in the real estate market," Franklin says. "If the market is increasing or decreasing, our workload increases. If it stays the same - our work is less for the year."
All the properties in the Town of Lansing (except those within the Village) were reviewed this year on a parcel by parcel basis. Property owners will find a form on the back of their Assessment Change Notice with which to ask for a review. That could result in a lower assessment, though it could also go the other way. But while nobody loves to pay taxes, officials say there are few complaints. King says she hasn't received any feedback from stressed taxpayers.
"All in all, people are very good relative to what I hear from other assessors," Franklin says. "We can be of assistance when the concern is about value. We can help with that. When the concern is about taxes, we can't help with that part of the equation. I think over the years, people are aware of what my office does. We don't work on commission. Our concern is to have equitable full market assessments. That is it. And people hold us accountable for that aspect."
Assessment Review Hearings will be March 22 – April 1. Online and paper appeals may be submitted until April 8.
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