Wawarsing – "The CRREO report wasn't news to me," says Mike Sommers, Assessor of the Town of Wawarsing. "I get all the complaints, so I know we're highly taxed."

The news that Ellenville pays the highest taxes in the county, as reported in October, was no surprise to Ellenville's Mayor Jeff Kaplan, either.

"I read the report, of course," says Mayor Kaplan. "We know we have a problem."

There are several different strands to this situation. The mayor explains how the community got here.

"Back, fifty, sixty years ago, the village incorporated because they had to take care of the streets in the winter at a higher level than in the outlying areas. It wasn't anything to do with taxes. Back then, the taxes were minimal."

Mike Sommers notes, "Back then, the village was a prosperous place. People wanted to live there. There were no empty storefronts. People could walk to work, walk to the stores, walk to church. The rest of the township was much less developed and much less desirable."

Obviously, things have changed since then.

"So, now there's an additional layer of tax for the village," says Kaplan, noting that village residents pay for the village's police protection services — which takes up "a significant part of the budget" — whereas residents outside the village who don't receive those services don't have to fund the department.

"The village incurs other expenses that the town doesn't contribute to, and should, in my opinion," continues Mayor Kaplan. "The village is host to the Town Hall, to the schools, to the major churches, and to most if not all of the major events and festivals. And the police have to be on duty for all those events. So while they may not patrol in the whole township, there are costs relating to policing that are incurred by the town, but are paid by the village."

Even more fundamental is the fact that the Town of Wawarsing needs a revaluation. Mike Sommers says, "Wawarsing hasn't had a revaluation, as I like to say, since God created land. What that means in practice is that there are distortions, brought about by the way the markets have developed.

"So, you can have two houses, one is a colonial in good condition, the other is a Cape type house. Both the same size, and way back they were both assessed at, for argument's sake, a value of $10,000. But since then the desirability of colonials has taken their price up by about 2% a year, while Cape houses have only gone by 1% a year. So now, one house has a fair market value of, say $300,000, and the other is only worth perhaps $200,000, but both pay the same amount of property tax."

Kaplan adds another important point.

"When the original assessment was made, fifty years ago, property in the village was significantly more valuable than properties in the outlying areas. That has changed enormously; in fact it's reversed. But the assessment remains the same. The assessor has pointed this out to the town and the village. The village pays 20% more in school taxes than people living outside the village because the town refuses to revalue. We have to have a revaluation."

And there lies the rub, because the council members of the Town of Wawarsing have expressed numerous times in the past that they are not interested in cooperating with the Village of Ellenville on the topic of a revaluation, or, it would seem, on any other topics related to money.

Kaplan says, "One part of a solution would be to get as many entities within the town and village consolidated as we can. That's a way we could save money for both. For instance, we asked the town to join us in using the building that Provident Bank sold us at a bargain price. A multi-million dollar building for a million dollars, but the town just ignored it. We've also spoken to them about merging the courts, which is something the state has recommended to cut costs, and they ignored that request too. We wanted to merge our revolving loan fund and create an economic development office. The town refused to cooperate, so the economic development office is funded by the village."

Over at the Town of Wawarsing, the view is slightly different. Town Supervisor Ed Jennings says, "The town is not opposed to a reval, but we just have to take a good look at it. The cost of doing it is high, and in our economic climate right now, we have to ask if this is the time to take a look at it. I haven't looked at this in any depth at all, yet."

In response to the fact that residents of the village are paying higher taxes than residents of the town, Supervisor Jennings is unmoved.

"I think the people who are paying high taxes are the ones who can afford it. I don't want to help one group of people and hurt another group, who are less able to pay."

And Jennings points to the overarching cause of most of our area's economic woe.

"Look, we've lost a thousand jobs here in the last couple of years. Nothing's come in to replace them. That's the basic problem here."

Keith Eighmy, a member of the Village of Ellenville Dissolution Study Committee, says that a revaluation is necessary.

"That's the way to go, out of basic fairness to the taxpayers in the village. However, there are other avenues that we're looking at in terms of consolidating services."

Unfortunately a revaluation at this point would be expensive, just as Supervisor Jennings fears, in part because it's been so long since it was last done.

"A reval will cost between $80 and $90 per parcel of property," says Mike Sommers. "There are 6,100 parcels in the township, for a total cost around $550,000."

That's a sizeable piece of change, around 10% of the town's budget. But it's not the only problem. Keith Eighmey puts it like this: "Basically, the residents of the town are very reluctant to absorb any costs. They are also reluctant to confront the issues. I think that in the end it's going to have to be forced on them."

While there is a state law that can be used to force a community to revalue, neither Kaplan nor Eighmey want to talk about legal action. But ultimately, if the town won't talk to the village, it may come to that.

Then again, it may not. Supervisor Jennings says, "The village could be dissolved. And there could be a reval. Right now we're looking at a grant that would help us organize the sharing of some services."

Getting the taxpayers of the town to accept the need for a reval is going to be a challenge, but the pressure building up for it is only going to increase. The Dissolution Study Committee has been meeting regularly to discuss this and other related topics, and has been thinking about holding a public meeting.

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