School board: city's payments too slow

OGDENSBURG — The city owes its school district more than $500,000 for unpaid property taxes over the past three years, and some school board members say they have to wait too long for the city to pay up.

Ogdensburg City School District Board of Education members on Monday agreed to explore whether St. Lawrence County can take over tax collection for the school district.

But county Treasurer Robert O. McNeil warned that remedy might be too complicated to be feasible. Mr. McNeil said the county annually compensates municipalities for unpaid taxes, but does not do the same for Ogdensburg because the city has its own tax foreclosure process. The county forecloses on property for unpaid taxes in its towns and villages.

"The city has chosen to be the tax enforcement agency for taxes in the city, so that means they are also the collector of school taxes," he said.

According to its charter, the city is required to compensate the school district for unpaid taxes. The city has two years to pay, said Board of Education President Frederick P. Bean.

"Some of what they owe is from longer than two years ago," Mr. Bean said.

Some school board members said Monday that the county might be able to compensate the district for unpaid taxes sooner than the city can, but Mr. McNeil said that means the city would have to give up its tax enforcement rights.

"You couldn't have both of us foreclosing for taxes," he said. "The city makes the school whole, and they foreclose for taxes within the city. If the county did, we'd be foreclosing. We'd have to study what all that means. There would be a lot more to it."

Making the school district whole for delinquent taxes is a cost the city can recover only through foreclosure, and that process takes time, said city Comptroller Philip A. Cosmo.

"When we foreclose, we bid out the lien on the property, and then we have to wait a year," Mr. Cosmo said. "There is about $465,000 that we have not collected in the current year, and there's about $80,000 from the past three years that hasn't been collected. ... We're working on those."

Mr. Cosmo said it might be possible for the school district to collect its own taxes, but he has not researched the possibility.

Mr. McNeil and Mr. Cosmo said Thursday that school district officials had not contacted them about the tax collection issue.

Neither school district Business Manager Jeffrey R. Swanson nor Superintendent Timothy M. Vernsey could be reached Thursday.

Johnson Newspapers writer Jim Reagen contributed to this report.