Albany Times Union. March 20, 2024.
Editorial: Counties must fix a wrong they perpetuated
Owners of foreclosed properties sold at a profit deserve to get the money they’re owed.
A county in Minnesota took and sold Geraldine Tyler’s home for $40,000 to satisfy $15,000 in unpaid taxes. The county kept the extra money.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that such a practice, common in New York, violated the 14th Amendment. The unanimous ruling was a victory for justice, due process and property rights; the equity built by homeowners, often over decades, is simply not the government’s to pocket.
Here’s how the decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts put it: “A taxpayer who loses her $40,000 house to the State to fulfill a $15,000 tax debt has made a far greater contribution to the public fisc than she owed. The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.”
But as the Times Union’s Raga Justin reported, the win for Ms. Tyler and others like her is a financial blow for New York counties, which have turned taking properties, selling them, and keeping the profit into a regular cash stream. Officials now must figure out how to make up for the lost money.
That isn’t the only looming question. The ruling in Turner vs. Hennepin County left unclear if it should apply retroactively. Which is to say, the opinion didn’t address whether governments should repay homeowners victimized by the unconstitutional practice in past years.
As a matter of legality, the answer will come via additional court rulings. Cases have been filed in U.S. District Court against dozens of counties across New York, with at least one class-action suit pending against Saratoga County.
Since New York counties unjustly profited, they should be obligated to return what they took. Consider that the homeowners, perhaps facing emergencies or other difficult circumstances that left them unable to pay their taxes, lost not only their homes but the equity they could have passed on to the next generation, or used to find new places to live.
But the cost of making the homeowners whole will be significant: The Pacific Legal Foundation estimates New York homeowners who lost their properties were deprived of $79 million between 2014 and 2021. Given that the practice stretches back over decades, the cost to fully repay homeowners would be considerable. Should there be a look-back window for filing claims, or a cutoff date that would limit reimbursements to recent foreclosures? Where would counties come up with the money to satisfy claims? There are no easy answers to these questions, but the state owes it to homeowners to weigh them. A first step would be to collect data from counties to calculate how much money they’ve kept from foreclosure sales.
There is a role here for state lawmakers to make property law conform with the court decision. For one, counties now must be required to get full-market value for foreclosed properties, and we need rules for how and when money is returned to property owners once a tax debt is paid. Lawmakers should also make clear that counties can’t skirt the ruling or otherwise attempt to continue a practice so clearly unconstitutional.
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Oneonta Daily Star. March 14, 2024.
Editorial: Let’s start funding the police again
It’s been a long time since leaders in our country have lobbied for an increase in police funding. But after 2022 left law enforcement chasing the culprits of more than 338,000 reported cases of property crime in New York state alone, Gov. Kathy Hochul and her team are making it clear the “defunding the police” era is over, and we are glad to hear it.
This week, officials of Hochul’s administration announced what they are calling a comprehensive statewide crackdown on organized retail theft.
According to a press release, the anti-theft plan includes just over $45 million to combat spiking larceny offenses.
That seems like good use of tax dollars to us.
Our community is one that relies heavily on small business and it is those which retail theft impacts the most.
Local larceny reports in our paper paint a picture of a community in need of intervention. While the majority of our reports are related to theft at the local Walmart, we are under no illusion these thieves are choosing to steal only from big box giants. Retailers of all sizes are falling victim to these crimes and they need our support.
“We’ve been successfully working with local law enforcement to drive down gun violence, murders and shootings — now we must take that same approach to curb organized retail theft,” Hochul said in her recent public safety announcement. “It’s time to give police and prosecutors the tools they need to go after retail thieves and back our businesses with the full force of the law. Public safety is my top priority, and I’m committed to keeping customers and workers safe.”
The plan, which is included in the fiscal year 2025 budget, involves setting up a State Police Smash and Grab Enforcement Unit. According to the news release from Hochul’s office, the executive budget includes $25.2 million in new funding to deploy a dedicated State Police team to build cases against organized retail theft rings and create a new enforcement unit; $10 million in funding for district attorneys to prosecute property crime cases and deploy dedicated retail theft teams in district attorney offices; $5 million in additional state funding to build the capacity of local law enforcement efforts to combat retail theft and $5 million for a commercial security tax credit to help business owners offset the costs of certain store security measures.
In addition to an increased budget, the anti-theft plan includes the introduction of legislation which aims to increase penalties for assaulting retail workers and establish criminal penalties for online marketplaces and third-party sellers that foster the sale of stolen goods.
Having a strong state and local law enforcement presence is crucial to the safety and prosperity of any community.
Over the last four years, police departments across the country have seen dramatic budget cuts and increased community vitriol. The drop in applicants we are seeing now is likely a direct correlation.
Locally, Oneonta Police Lt. Eric Berger has been vocal about the lack of applicants.
“We have vacancies we are hoping to fill, so we can continue to provide services to the community,” he told The Daily Star last fall. “We provide those services now, even with the vacancies, but we want to continue them … The more applicants we have in the pool, the higher the level of applicants we can hire.”
It is in everyone’s best interest to see an increase in applicants. Cutting funding for police is not the way to make that happen.
We hope the increase in law enforcement funding is a signal of more than just a change of heart, but a change in rationale when it comes to supporting officers of the law. Those who protect our businesses and families should be respected and properly funded.
These new state programs are a step in the right direction.
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Jamestown Post-Journal. March 16, 2024.
Editorial: Watch What DEC Does Rather Than Listening To What It Says
After the uproar over possible impacts expanded wetlands regulations could have on Chautauqua Lake over the past few weeks, no one should be surprised that state DEC officials are saying there will be no major changes to the lake.
It’s good to hear the DEC say to local and state elected officials that no major changes are expected. But we take those sugary words with a grain of salt and a warning: pay attention to both what the DEC says and, more importantly, what it does.
In 2022 Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law historic revisions to New York’s Freshwater Wetlands Act. New York’s original Freshwater Wetlands Act was enacted in 1975 to regulate activities near larger wetlands, greater than 12.4 acres, and smaller wetlands considered to be of unusual local importance. The new wetlands law eliminates the use of older, inaccurate wetland maps and clarifies that all wetland areas greater than 12.4 acres are subject to Article 24 regulations. Freshwater wetlands are lands and submerged lands – commonly called marshes, swamps, sloughs, bogs, and flats – that support aquatic or semi-aquatic vegetation.
It is from this background that the new DEC draft wetlands regulations sprung. It’s understandable that, without open dialogue from the DEC other than news releases, people would look at the legal definitions in the proposed regulations and see major changes coming.
“The DEC officials explained that the recent Chautauqua Lake wetlands declaration, regarding the southern basin and the Burtis Bay area of the lake, occurred because the natural density of that part of the lake now falls into the description of wetlands. Ms. Barrett O’Neill especially explained, several times, that there are no wetlands being created, nor planned. The DEC stated that this is not a push-the-panic-button moment,” Randall Holcomb, Lakewood mayor, said during Monday’s Village Board meeting.
The fact the DEC isn’t proposing major changes now doesn’t mean things can’t change in the future. That’s particularly true if there is a change in leadership of DEC’s Region 9, which oversees Chautauqua County.
As we noted in this space a few week ago, Chautauqua Lake is incredibly important to Chautauqua County’s economy. The shores of Chautauqua Lake are home to about 25% of Chautauqua County’s taxable value. It’s a vital driver of both tax dollars to local governments and money that supports wide swaths of the southern Chautauqua County economy. That’s one reason why we spend so much time calling for increased investment in lake maintenance programs. And it’s a reason we’re wary of expanded wetlands designations that could result in less lake maintenance activities that both drive down land values but, just as importantly, make it harder for tourists to use the lake.
The DEC says this isn’t a push-the-panic-button situation. OK. We’ll take our collective finger off the panic button, but that button is still on our desk.
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New York Post. March 19, 2024.
Editorial: Pass a state budget that addresses New York’s most urgent issues
Wouldn’t it be nice if the next state budget focused on handling New York’s worst problems?
Things like the migrant wave, subway violence, mental illness, a housing crunch, soaring electric bills, the plague illegal pots shops, a teetering school system . . .
We’ve written about the priorities of Gov. Hochul and the drunken-sailor legislators who want to spend $246 billion — more than the entire economy of Greece.
But making New York better would require a dramatically different approach:
For starters: Slash taxes. Drastically.
The Empire State’s highest-in-America tax burden has fueled a rush to the exits: From July 2020 to July 2023 alone, more than half a million left New York for greener pastures.
The drop has coincided with never-ending tax hikes, starting with a “temporary” steep new tax on New York’s high-earners in 2009 that’s since been largely renewed and deepened, with the top rate now at 10.9%, up from 6.85%.
This, when the cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes (a k a SALT) means the state income tax hits far harder than it used to.
And now progressives are pushing for still another $2.2 billion hike this year, with a top rate at 11.4%.
No way: To hang on to the top earners who form a huge part of the tax base, New York needs to get back to that top rate of 6.85% — or less.
Next: Repeal every recent criminal-justice “reform.”
Albany’s rammed through several round of these since 2017: Raise the Age, cashless bail, tough new rules for prosecutors — and it’s all led to more crime: Major felonies in the city were up 32% last year over 2018.
Reverse or at least repair every one of those “reforms” — and get the MTA the cash for more cops in the subway.
Give the mayor permanent control of city schools.
Quit toying with ending mayoral control (and quietly limiting it); there’s no reason only New York City parents should face endless uncertainty over how their system gets run.
Boost charter schools.
Charters have been the best hope for poor, minority kids desperate to escape their failing city-run schools but unable to afford private ones.
Lawmakers need to defy the teachers union, which hates the competition, lift the cap on the charters and give them as much per-pupil funding as other public schools.
Help mentally ill New Yorkers and get violent ones off the streets.
New Yorkers are sick of looking over their shoulders for dangerous crazies and stepping over drug-addled or mentally ailing bodies on sidewalks. And these sick people deserve care.
The state needs to provide way more psychiatric beds — and make it easier to commit those who are violent.
Crack down on illegal pot shops.
New York’s legalization of weed sales has been a disaster: Create a workable system for licensing accountable, tax-collecting pot shops and empower local officials to shut down the criminal ones.
Repeal the 2019 rent “reforms” and restore the affordable-housing tax incentive.
The state should phase out rent control entirely, but it needs to at least get the city’s housing market out of cardiac arrest.
The 2019 changes made it impossible for landlords to afford fixes, leading them to warehouse apartments they can’t afford to bring up to code.
And progressives killed the 421(a) tax break that had fostered most new lower-income housing construction; until something like it returns, builders will focus only on projects that serve high earners.
Repeal congestion pricing.
This punitive, ineffective scheme won’t relieve traffic or slow climate change but merely slam everyday workers.
If the MTA needs money, let the state find it elsewhere.
Scrap, fix or delay the green-agenda madness.
As the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin notes, the true costs of New York’s 2019 climate law are off the charts: between $600 billion and $1 trillion. All paid for by New Yorkers, mainly via hidden charges on utility bills.
And it puts New York’s electrical supplies at grave risk.
Take over the migrant crisis from the city.
The consent decree forcing Gotham to provide shelter for every person who seeks it supposedly stems from the state Constitution. So why isn’t the state picking up the tab?
Some of these ideas mean more state spending, but the cash can come from ending outlays New York doesn’t remotely need, including its billions in “economic development” waste and inane special-interest tax breaks — $700 million a year for the film and TV biz alone.
Taxpayers could also save a ton from trimming back New York’s Medicaid benefits, which vastly exceed the national average.
Heck, ending prevailing-wage laws would cut 20% off the cost of capital projects.
Yes, these ideas are the stuff of nightmare for the folks who run New York, but that’s because they’re running it for themselves, not the public at large.
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