White Plains CitizeNetReporter - Reader Asks WPCNR to Print Letter Replying to City Consultant View of Finances.

WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. September 15, 2005: A WPCNR regular attempted to send the following letter to the Gannett newspaper to respond to an op-ed piece written by a White Plains financial consultant. The reader sends the letter to WPCNR to discuss the consultant's opinions on city finances:

John,

Recently the JN (Journal News) published a lengthy reply by Ted Peluso to one of my previous letters (which was limited to 250 words), but they would not let me respond. I am hoping that you will.

Reply to Ted Peluso’s 1 September JN ''In Reply'':

Ted made a number of points, and missed the points.

(more)

Reply to Ted Peluso

The fact that the city’s financial statements are audited and well formatted only means that they accurately reflect the city’s financial position and are free of factual misstatements. Using one-time land sales to balance the budget is not illegal, but it is contrary to long standing city fiscal performance goals as adopted by the Common Council. The bookkeeping to absorb the Parking Authority is accurate, but it reflects a major policy change, done solely to bring the budget into balance.

Ted said that the city had a very informative but poorly attended presentation on the 10th of August. It was poorly attended because of the lack of meeting notices, e-mail notices, not being highlighted on the web site, and not being broadcast on cable. It is this lack of effort that I am complaining about. Oh, and how balanced were the presentations? Was the state’s position on equalization rates and assessments presented accurately? How many alternative scenarios were given? Was there a presentation on what the tax base would be without PILOTS but with the type of development envisioned by the 1997 Comprehensive Plan?

The shrinking tax base is blamed on the State. The necessity of the equalization rate and the success of tax certioraris is because of the lack of consistent and accurate assessments, a politically charged issue that this administration, among others, has not addressed.

Ted says that PILOTS resulted in higher payments than what would be collected from property taxes on the un-redeveloped distressed properties. So would regular property taxes. The implication is that developers would not come to White Plains if we did not give them significant concessions. This is a view that neither I nor the Comprehensive Plan Review Committee share. As an aside, ‘distressed’ is an unnecessary, subjective term, similar to my daughter’s characterization of the new towers as ‘eye-sores’.

He applauds the increased revenue from mortgage taxes. The region will also show a significant boost in revenue from gasoline taxes as the cost shoots past $3.00 a gallon. Is this really a good thing?

Don Hughes


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