T IMES
MID
HUDSON
Vol. 29, No 41
Excelsior
students
celebrate
3
OCTOBER 11 - 17, 2017
3
ONE DOLLAR
Uphill
battle for
Goldbacks
Page 43
Page 28
SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR
Rental registry letter reaps confusion Clerical error
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
City of Newburgh property owners
were surprised to get a letter in the mail
this month asking for information about
their homes and buildings. The letter was
part of an effort to fully catalogue the
city’s rental properties and ramp up code
enforcement.
The city’s rental registry law requires
that landlords register their buildings
with the city in order to obtain a rental
license. But, so far, city officials say the
ordinance has fallen short of meeting its
goal of providing a comprehensive record
of rental properties.
“No matter how we slice or dice the
data, there are always a significant
number of properties that are left out,”
said City Manager Michael Ciaravino at
City Hall last Thursday.
“What we decided to do was blanket
the entire community with notices.. that
require single-family homeowners to
either affirmatively state or deny whether
they have other tenants or other dwellings
in their residences.”
A form accompanied the letter asking
property owners how many rental
units they owned. But, the letter caused
confusion, especially among homeowners
with no rental units. On Facebook last
week, residents said they found the letter
“threatening” and complained that a
Spanish version of the letter was not also
sent out.
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
Continued on page 4
The faces of New Windsor
Shantal Riley
(From left) Hannah Schmitt, Fred Fayo IIII, Christopher DiLorenzo and John Babcock are sworn in as police officers at New Windsor Town Hall
on Oct. 4. Town Clerk Deborah Green presides over the ceremony.
WWW.MIDHUDSONTIMES.COM
hits school
district in the
pocketbook
A “clerical error” made by the Town
of Newburgh Assessor is going to cost
the Marlboro School district dearly in the
2017-18 school year; $1,180,945 to be exact.
Last week the Orange County Real
Property Tax Service Agency and the
Town of Newburgh’s Assessor’s Office
informed the Marlboro School District
that in September they made a $15 million
“clerical error” in calculating this year’s
assessment for the Roseton Power Plant.
Marlboro relies on the Assessor’s office
for accuracy when compiling their school
budget and tax bills.
The Roseton plant is under a federal
court-ordered settlement that each year
reduces their assessed value and thus
lowers the amount they pay in school
taxes. The settlement reductions will
conclude in 2019.
For this year’s tax bill, the Newburgh
Assessor failed to apply the court-ordered
reduction and instead used the previous
year’s figures, resulting in a tax bill for
the plant of $4,130,758 on an assessment
of $50,672,200. Representatives for the
Roseton plant filed for a corrected tax roll
that lowered their tax bill to $2,907,969 on
an assessment of $35,672,200.
All of this leaves the Marlboro School
District in a bind on how to make up
for the unexpected shortfall; either make
cuts of nearly $1.2 million or tap their
Continued on page 3