Why Citizens Can, and Should Consolidate
The answer is obvious: Savings. While it’s easy to speak about issues of government transparency and efficiency, going through the cumbersome undertaking of petitioning a level of government to dissolve or consolidate a district should only be done of there are clear property tax savings to taxpayers.
Special Taxing Districts do not charge such high taxes to homeowners because the services they provide are overly expensive. Instead, they charge outrageous rates because, in many cases, they practice exorbitant levels of patronage, corruption and wasteful spending.
If fraud and waste could simply be removed from special districts, then there would simply be one reason to consolidate or dissolve them. But, over the past several decades, many of these districts, notably Sanitation districts, have been completely reluctant to change their Byzantine policies despite an unending string of audits conducted by several state and county comptrollers, and demands from reform by the sitting Governor and Attorney General of the State of New York.
As a result, in districts that are currently on wasting taxpayer funds, the only remaining recourse should be to begin steps to consolidate or dissolve.
One of the best ways to do this? Find a clear path to savings. In Nassau County, Comptroller Howard Weitzman has already done some of that work. His audits can be viewed here. Most of the time, the equation is fairly simple:
• Investigate the tax rates imposed by a Special Taxing District. This can be done by simply reading your tax bill. Additionally, the tax rates of Long Island’s sanitation and water districts are all public knowledge. To view many of the audits that will reveal these numbers to you, click here. In some cases, certain hard-to-gather information can be acquired via the New York State “Freedom of Information Law” (FOIL). By law, citizens can gain access to documents from state and government agencies by filing a FOIL request.
• Then, compare that tax rate with the rates imposed by the municipal government in which the district is geographically located.
• If there is a disparity- and there often is- than it is almost unilaterally true that consolidation or dissolution could save money. A lot of this work has already been done for you- especially when it pertains to Nassau County- where both the state and county comptrollers have routinely audited Special Taxing Districts and revealed not only waste, fraud and abuse, not also a clear path to substantial savings.
Additionally, there is an issue of fairness. When it comes to the shouldering the burden of Special District taxes, it is often working class communities and communities of color who suffer the most. In July of 2007, Former Nassau County Assessor Harvey Levinson performed a compelling study that revealed some of the unnecessary disparities between Special Taxing Districts. Levinson was able to show how two different houses of identical value paid drastically different Special District taxes, and could even accurately display two houses on the same road that paid different taxes to two different Commissioner-lead Sanitation districts.
In his remarks to the New York State Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, Levinson said:
“The time of the status quo has passed. We have to be visionaries not obstructionists. Every tax savings idea must be on the table with the realization that we must do what is best for the taxpayer.”
Levinson was able to give an accurate look at the complete lack of balance and fairness that exists with Special Taxing Districts. His study accurately explains that decades without government oversight and mismanagement have lead to this kind of disparity.
