Letter to the Editor: Legislators Should Rollback the Reval

Wakefield Road
Scarsdale, NY 10583
September 8, 2016

To the Editor of Scarsdale 10583:

Scarsdale residents have just lived through a long and frustrating summer of outrage, challenge, exploration, and learning with regard to the Village's 2016 property tax revaluation. Through many public meetings, FOIL requests, news articles, and social media, we have learned a lot about the poor quality of preparation and execution of the reassessment process. Now it is September, final property evaluation numbers are due to New York State authorities, and we still have no remedy in sight.

Many of us have urged Village leaders to roll back the assessment to that used for the 2015 assessments, which would undo the disastrous 2016 revaluation. As far as I can tell, while New York State laws do not specifically provide for rollback of evaluations, they also do not forbid it. The immediate problem is one of time—to agree on a remedy and for the Assessor's office to correct the tax records—before filing completed reports with the New York State Office of Real Property Tax Services.

Accordingly, I ask Scarsdale Village tax payers to join me in asking our State legislators—Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Representative Amy Paulin—to very quickly introduce and pursue emergency legislation authorizing the rollback and authorizing Scarsdale Village to provide final assessment numbers 90 or 120 days after the typical September date such data are due to NYS Office of Taxation and Finance. This would give the breathing room for the action that is needed: the rollback.

Sincerely,

Michele Braun