Getting Fleeced

The Record 

We the people have been fooled again. The Cohoes School Board advertised a zero percent tax increase. Wow! Good news. And most voters, as well as the Troy Record editors fell for it (6/19 ‘Voters should approve school referendum’).  But school spending is going up by $3million – that’s a whopping 13.4%! And this is before the referendum expenses you want approved because taxes were not raised. Now here is the $3 million question. How can they spend more without raising taxes? Have the laws of nature or economics been suspended? Does money grow on Cohoes trees? 

OK. Half of it will be confiscated from other New Yorkers, including those in Green Island, and sent to us via more state aid. That still means the other half - $1.5 million dollars - will come from property taxes. And how can they collect almost 20% more in taxes without a tax hike? It must be magic!

 That’s when I remembered something my grand daddy might have told me. "Magic is just trickery". He was no fool.

 Two significant events happened in Cohoes recently. A court decision found Niagara Mohawk had been over-assessed, and Cohoes just completed a citywide reassessment. We were told the reassessment was to be "revenue neutral" and not just an excuse to increase tax collections. Only individual tax payments would be made equitable based on relative market value. Has the city grown 20% in the last year? I failed to notice. As with NiMo assessments in the past, it appears the value of Cohoes has suddenly gone up by government decree. But try to explain that to real estate people when you want to sell.

The School Board, the mayor, and the unions they represent, found another opportunity to pick our pockets. While the people had their eyes on the tax rate, their ‘representatives’ increased taxes by raising assessed value instead. How clever of them. Spending per student will be almost $12,000 next year. Although our school spending is exceptionally high, teaching results continue to be embarrassingly low.

Raising taxes without raising tax rates was the magic. Reassessment was the trick. Once again ‘we the people’ have been fleeced. Shame on us for behaving like sheep. And shame on the Record for not reporting the shearing.

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