North Rockland School Board sets equalized tax rates

Note — The Journal News daily newspaper has published different tax rates than those reported in the article below, based on information provided to them by Stony Point Supervisor Geoff Finn and Tax Assessor Bill Beckman. The school district has confirmed the Rockland County Times correctly reported the numbers they district released at the special meeting last week. The Rockland County Times has yet to ascertain the reason for the discrepancy in reportage as Stony Point has not shared their version of information with the newspaper. The Journal News has not explained why they reported information from the town instead of from the school district.

BY MICHAEL RICONDA

Garnerville – The North Rockland School Board set the annual tax levy and tax rates for their school district at a special meeting on August 27, showing slight to moderate increases.

Overall, the levy increased 3.62 percent. Much of this is tailored to accommodate revenue losses in North Rockland and a decline in home assessments from Haverstraw of 10 percent for houses and 5 percent for condominiums.

The total tax levy was announced to be $137,494,824. Split by town, this means the average Haverstraw homeowner will see a $178.43 increase to $6,739 per year, while Stony Point homeowners will see a smaller $36.34 increase to $7,491 per year.

Though Haverstraw residents pay less on average, they will also be hit harder by the levy. For Stony Point, the increase represents a 0.5 percent bump up in taxes, in contrast with 2.72 percent for Haverstraw. Still, this is an improvement over prior projections that Haverstraw’s levy would increase $278 per home.

One of the contributing factors for the final numbers is the state’s STAR program, which netted an average tax reduction of $1,591 for Haverstraw homeowners and $1,736 for Stony Point homeowners.

  North Rockland School District, taxes