County works toward streamlining assessment process

NORWICH – A group of lawmakers and town assessors met last week with an official from the New York State’s Real Property Tax office to discuss how to apply a $50,000 state grant.

The grant, developed at the behest of the Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, is intended to streamline the county’s property tax assessment and collection procedures. Government leaders, including the county’s treasurer and finance committee chairman, initially refused to accept it earlier this year, fearing that the state would eventually use the grant to usurp local authority.

Following the meeting, Treasurer William E. Evans said, “There really is no structured framework for using the grant. It seems to entertain a bottom-up approach from the grassroots, local level as opposed to what we had thought would be a state-down approach.”

“The interesting thing is the state is going to let us decide on this; it’s our decision where we want to go,” Chenango County Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard B. Decker said.

For the past two years, Decker has suggested that more training for local assessors, more sharing of local assessors and better statistical data in the real property tax office would cut taxes. He said the group talked about creating consolidated assessing districts, called “caps,” where one assessor would work for three to four towns, depending on size.