Real estate taxes in Westchester County, New York are really starting to become an issue. The funny money of the Greenspan boom has evaporated and the upper middle class of the New York suburbs is starting to feel the pinch. The number of high end homes being put on the market by out-of-work investment bankers and hedge fund traders is mushrooming. With this high end depression as a backdrop, local governments are having trouble with budgets that historically would have drawn a yawn.
In the Village of Irvington, the School Board received a petition of 250 signatures demanding a 5% reduction in the 2009-2010 budget.
In neighboring Dobbs Ferry, where I live, a very curious graph appeared in the Rivertowns Enterprise on Friday, April 24, on page 7. Paid for by an ad hoc group of citizens, the graph shows the Village budget spinning out of control relative to inflation by 2020.
The remarkable thing that these spontaneous taxpayer revolts is that the Irvington school tax increase is only 0.83%, while the Dobbs Ferry Village tax increase is 4.9%. In yesteryears such numbers would have been greeted with a hearty relative backslap. Today, it is the absolute dollar amount that is causing the backlash.
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