Pearl River Schools Set 2013-14 Tax Rate

New York State school districts make their budget calculations for the upcoming school year in time to go to the public for approval in May, but Pearl River did not set its tax rates until Tuesday night's board of education meeting.

"In the old days, this meeting last night would have been the most important of the year," Pearl River Director of Operations Quinton Van Wynen said. "It was the final opportunity to make adjustments to the levy. Now, you have to do the calculations before the budget vote. I was locked into the number in May. It was just a matter of how it would be distributed based on base proportion and assessments."

For the budget passed by voters in May, Van Wynen estimated a 1.68 percent tax increase for homeowners and a 6.03 percent bump for businesses in Pearl River, but the increases approved by the school board Tuesday were 0.71 percent for homeowners and 11.5 percent for businesses. The changes were caused by differences from expectations in tax assessments and the base proportion shift, which determines what percentage of taxes will come from homeowners and what percentage from businesses. 

"The reason (the tax increase for homeowners) dropped almost a whole percent is the assessments came in about $2.8 million above where we estimated they'd be and the base proportion shift we thought would be one percent to benefit homestead instead turned out to be 1.5 percent,

"That is wonderful for homestead, but very bad for non-homestead. Their increase is 11.5 percent. That's mostly due to the assessment drop."


Blue Hill Plaza in Pearl River was among the tax settlements that contributed to a drop in tax assessments for businesses. Blue Hill's management agreed not to go to court in pursuit of refunds for the last two years, but going forward, the tax assessment will decrease to take into account the space now empty due to Verizon moving its data canter from the plaza. 

Van Wynen's full recommendation to the school board can be found on the district website here. 

The Orangetown Council voted Tuesday night to adopt the homestead base proportions recommended by Assessor Brian Kenney, with homestead dropping from 67.9 percent to 66.2 percent and non-homestead (businesses) increasing from 32.1 percent to 33.8.