To the Editor:

The Irvington Board of Trustees strongly supports the Greenburgh Real Property Advisory Committee’s recommendation that a Town-wide property reassessment be performed (December 2009 The Hudson Independent). We feel the reassessment should be undertaken at the Town level for reasons of fairness and cost savings. The failure to reassess for decades, whether resulting from an absence of political will or other reasons, has produced inequality and inconsistency in assessment that must be rectified. Furthermore, based on Committee estimates, Town-wide expenses (including Irvington, other Villages and school districts) of defending against certioraris claims exceed a million taxpayer dollars per year. Additional certioraris are to be expected in the wake of falling home values. As residents and governments face historically challenging economic times and the specter of large tax increases to address falling revenues, declining pension investments and rising government indebtedness, this is the time to act swiftly to bring parity back to the tax rolls for the first time in half a century.

The Irvington Village Board believes that reassessment at the Town level is the only way to correct the entire tax bill of Irvington residents (and indeed of all Town residents). If Irvington performs a Village only reassessment, the approximately 80% of our tax bills that relate to the Town and County (about 15% each) and the School District (about 50%) would be unaffected and the cost to the Village may range from $250,000 to $500,000. Of course this is an expense that would have to be repeated periodically. Additionally, if as we hope, the Town were to conduct a reassessment, taxpayers would pay twice. A shared service approach to reassessment is the most sensible and viable option.

Periodically in the last 50 years the issue of reassessment has come to the forefront, with the State, County and Town each taking a leadership role. Although reassessment is a complicated and potentially arduous undertaking, and its implementation will need to be phased to avoid undue hardship, correcting the inequities that have resulted from inaction is long overdue. If you agree with the Irvington Village Board and the Greenburgh Real Property Advisory Committee, we urge you to contact Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner at pfei...@greenburghny.com to express your support for Town-wide reassessment.

Sincerely,

Mayor Jonathan A. Siegel

Trustee Brian C. Smith

Trustee Walter Montgomery

Trustee John Malone

Trustee Constance M. Kehoe

Village of Irvington