Ogdensburg Highest Tax Exempt City: NY

By MAX R. MITCHELL

Johnson News Service

Two North Country municipalities have the highest percentage of tax exempt properties in the state.

The city of Ogdensburg and the Lewis County town of Harrisburg were both ranked number one in the state Office of Real Property's recently released report of tax exemptions for towns, cities and counties for 2009 tax rolls.

According to the report, 64 percent of the city's assessed property is exempt and 88 percent of Harrisburg property is tax exempt.

Joseph A. Hesch, a spokesman for the state Office of Real Property, said the list gauges how much of a community is tax exempt and how much of a community is bearing the brunt of the tax burden.

"It indicates how exemptions affect local taxation," he said. "It's a representation of the amount of exempt value of a community that is not being taxed. It's being picked up by the rest of the value of the municipality."

However, Lewis County Office of Real Property Director Caryn W. Kolts said Harrisburg's rank is misleading.

"The reason Harrisburg is listed as number one is because of our wind mills," she said. "They are on the assessment roll as exempt, but they are in a PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) project, so they are making payments. It's not like they are wholly exempt."

In 2008, the towns of Harrisburg and Martinsburg, which ranked fourth on the state's list of tax exempt properties, received $3.23 million for the PILOT with the Maple Ridge Wind Farm.

City Assessor Kathryn R. Bateman said with the amount of state property in Ogdensburg, she is not surprised that since 2000 the city has been ranked number one every year except 2007.

"It's always going to be on top because they include the bridge, they include the offices for Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority, they include the light industrial park, the heavy industrial park and the prisons," she said.

The St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center, the port of Ogdensburg, the Robert C. McEwen Customs House, the Ogdensburg Armory and the offices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg are also large properties that are tax exempt.

New York Council of Mayors Executive Director Peter A. Baynes said there are more than 250 state mandated tax exemptions for religious, government, charitable, educational and hospital properties as well as partial exemptions for senior citizen and home improvements programs among other things.

He said the exemptions are becoming a growing concern for cities, which tend to have high concentrations of government and tax exempt properties.

"All of those add up to being substantial," City Manager Arthur. J. Sciorra said. "Someone has to pay to remove the snow, or provide policing or fire protection, and that segment has become smaller and small and if you look at the segment for Ogdensburg it is staggering."