Assessment tweaks increase Scotia-Glenville tax rates a bit

PHOTOGRAPHER: Michael Goot

Scotia-Glenville’s school tax rate will be slightly higher than previously advertised because of some last-minute tax assessment adjustments.

The district had previously set at tax rate of $21.046 per $1,000 of assessed value. However, some property assessment challenges were settled, which resulted in $171,000 worth of property coming off the tax rolls, according to Business Manager Andrew Giaquinto.

This will boost the tax rate increase by 0.02 percent, to 3.26 percent. The new rate is $21.049 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The average Glenville homeowner with a house assessed at $160,000 would see the tax bill increase by about $107 to $3,369 — before any reductions from the STAR program are taken into account.

The rate for Charlton it is $27.56 per $1,000 assessed valuation and for a small slice of the town of Amsterdam is $190.76 per $1,000.

School officials had originally projected a 2.93 percent increase in the tax rate when voters in May approved the $47.8 million budget. However, a number of tax assessment challenges had dropped the total assessed value in the district by $4.6 million to $1.24 billion.

Properties that successfully got their assessments reduced included National Grid and Westmere Realty LLC, which owns apartments along Glen Avenue. Also, the new Target opening in October was only partially built this past spring when it was assessed for $1.5 million. Last year, an empty Kmart was at the site and assessed for $3.1 million.

The district did not have the surplus funds to make up for the assessment reductions.

Superintendent Susan Swartz said there are still some outstanding tax assessment challenges to be resolved but none that would affect the 2012 tax rate.

Good grades

In other business, the board heard from new Scotia-Glenville High School Principal Peter Bednarek on test results. District passing rates on Regents exams ranged mostly in the high 80 percent to low 90 percent range. The passing rates were 97 percent for integrated geometry; 94 percent for living environment; 93 percent for English; 91 percent for chemistry; 90 percent for U.S. history and earth science; 88 percent for integrated algebra 2 with trigonometry; and 87 percent for integrated algebra.

Among the areas the district didn’t fare so well were global history with a 79 percent passing rate and physics with only 72 percent passing.

Martin Ziac, academic head for social studies, said these scores reflect the fact that there was material on the test that was not covered in the curriculum. For example, one of the questions that required students to analyze a document and their own knowledge of the subject to craft an essay mentioned Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, who was not covered in the curriculum.

“Most kids did miss points on those questions,” Ziac said.

Board member David Bucciferro said he was concerned about the physics score.

Bednarek said the difficulty level of the test varies from year to year.

Bucciferro said the district has to maintain its good academic scores.

“We personally moved to Scotia because of this chart,” he said.