By enacting Gov. David Paterson's proposal to freeze property tax payments on state-owned land, the Legislature would have to amend an 1886 law guaranteeing full tax payments on state land.
Section 532 of the state Real Property Tax Law specifies that Forest Preserve lands be taxed, and section 542 says, "State lands subject to taxation shall be valued as if privately owned."
Paterson's proposal would amend the Real Property Tax Law to provide that all future payments should be "equal to the amount paid during state fiscal year 2008-09." Lands acquired after April 1, 2009, or during 2008-09 after the taxable status date of the lands, would be taxed at a rate no higher than that at which they were initially taxable when they entered state hands.
The state has estimated this will save $8.5 million in 2009-10 and about $16 million the fiscal year after that.
The plan has drawn widespread opposition from municipal governments statewide, particularly in the Adirondack and Catskill parks, where a large percentage of the land is state-owned. Local officials from both areas held a rally in Albany on Jan. 30 to express their opposition.
"We don't know of anyone on the legislative side that favors this," said Dan Mac Entee, spokesman for state Sen. Betty Little of Queensbury. "I think a lot of people are just not aware. We're trying to raise as much attention as possible." Little and her staff working with elected officials in the Adirondacks and Catskills to lobby against it, he said.
Many local municipalities have passed resolutions formally opposing the proposals, including the towns of Tupper Lake, Franklin and Harrietstown and the villages of Tupper Lake and Saranac Lake.
In the town of Franklin, for example, 35 percent of the land is owned directly by the state and more is held through conservation easements. The total valuation of the state's land in that town is $28.5 million, or 21 percent of the town's total.
A reassessment will be done in Franklin later this year. The 2008 equalization rate was 60 percent, and town Assessor Doug Tichenor estimated it is closer to 50 percent now, meaning the assessed value of the town could double when the revaluation results are made official in March 2010. If the state land's tax payments are capped and everyone else's assessed value doubles, "it will create a dramatic shift" in the property taxes paid by everyone else in the town, Tichenor said at a town board meeting Monday evening.
The state currently pays about $183 million in property taxes annually, $70 million of which is on its Forest Preserve land in the Adirondack Park.
In 2007, 34.3 percent of the land in Franklin County and 43.5 percent of the land in Essex County was state owned, according to the state Adirondack Park Agency, and both percentages have increased since then.
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Contact Nathan Brown at (518) 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.