County officials, including Board of Supervisors Chairman Art Baer (R-Hillsdale), were at the State Capitol on Tuesday as the deadline loomed for the legislation to be authorized, but instead of seeing positive results, they ended up witnessing the chaos that erupted as the Senate remained divided and a Democratic contingent attempted to enact legislation, claiming a quota after a Republican senator passed through the chambers in his way to get a soda. The legislation, which some senators claim was passed as a result of the Republican senator’s peripatetic presence in the chamber, will not be signed into law, Governor David Paterson said. |
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Columbia County Treasurer Ken Wilber said on Wednesday that for the time being the county still has the authority to collect the sales and property transfer taxes, with the legislation set to “sunset” later this year. But, he told ccSCOOP, the loss of the county’s one percent sales tax could spread misery to the county and its municipalities.
The one percent sales tax, he said, generates $7.5 million in added revenue—a quarter of the $30 million the county collects from sales tax each year. A third of the collection is then distributed to county’s towns and the City of Hudson, he said, with the remainder applied to offset the county’s $140 million budget. “The misery is going to be spread around,” he said.
In addition, Wilber said, the county collects $250,000 from the property transfer tax, and while mortgage tax revenues are shared with the municipalities, the property transfer tax that accompanies the mortgage tax remains solely a county revenue.
The Board of Supervisors passed the resolution requesting the sales tax extension in January, and the State Assembly took action on the request within the last month or so. As recently as last week, county officials were saying that the sales tax extension had cleared the Senate and would not be held up by the Senate leadership debate, but, Wilber said, that was the result of “some confusion.” County leadership has since learned that Columbia County, as well as numerous other counties in the state, may be financially harmed by the ongoing power struggle in the State Senate.
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