Benchmarking New York

Spending, Debt and Tax Levels for 2020

By BEN MOULTEN

New York State residents pay some of the highest local taxes in the nation. To help New Yorkers compare certain basic fiscal measures for local governments, the Empire Center for Public Policy has calculated effective property tax rates and per-capita values for the spending, debt and tax levels of counties, cities, towns, villages and school districts[1] throughout the state, excluding only New York City.

Derived from self-reported statistics gathered annually by the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC), the result is a database of measures that taxpayers can use as benchmarks for evaluating local governments.

Businesses have long known the benefits of benchmarking—measuring performance against standards set by competitors and peers. Benchmarks in isolation may say little about the quality of management or public services in different communities. However, by spotlighting differences and trends, the benchmarks in this report provide a framework for evaluation. And they provide goals for improvement for governments that need to compete more effectively to attract jobs and promote economic growth.

To further empower taxpayers to dig beneath the summary numbers, we continue to update our searchable online tool, which includes categorical breakdowns of spending for all 2,274 counties, towns, cities, villages and school districts. Benchmarking NY at SeeThroughNY.net lets users rank and compare spending, tax and debt measures for local governments. With the 2020 fiscal year data, there are now fourteen years of data to explore in Benchmarking NY. Here are just a few examples of what the data show:

Among the five largest cities outside New York City, Yonkers had the highest per-capita tax and debt burden, while Rochester had the highest per-capita spending. Albany had the highest effective property tax rate.

Monroe County surpassed all mid-sized county governments in spending per-capita, while Saratoga County’s low spending, taxes per-capita and effective property tax rate stood out in comparison.

Oyster Bay, in Nassau County, had the highest spending, highest taxes and most debt among large towns. Its per-capita debt was more than triple the average of its peers.

The five highest-spending villages were all located on Long Island. The two villages of Saltaire and Ocean Beach spent $69,512 and $65,652 per capita, respectively, while all other villages spent less than $18,500. Upstate villages spent comparatively low amounts but had higher effective property tax rates.

The maps below are color-coded according to jurisdictions’ level of spending per capita. By navigating the map, New York residents can view and compare various fiscal measures of municipalities and counties. The map may take a moment to load.

It’s all (sometimes) relative

Considered on a statewide basis, the data reflect vast differences in the cost of living and in property values between upstate and downstate regions.[2] Downstate communities have below-average effective property tax rates (but generally above-average per-capita taxes), while effective property tax rates tend to be highest upstate. Even allowing for such differences, comparing local governments reveals some significant differences among peers.

For example, the city of Jamestown spends more than twice as much as the similarly– sized city of Elmira. The Westchester County town of Bedford spends more than three times as much as the neighboring town of Somers. And in Central New York, the city of Oswego’s per-capita debt is more than double the amount reported by the city of Cortland.

The data offer possible explanations for such disparities (among other things, Jamestown operates a municipal electric utility service and Bedford spends heavily on public safety). Local officials can undoubtedly add some explanations of their own.

The purpose here is not to stigmatize, but to raise questions—and promote informed public discussion of the forces driving high local taxes in every corner of New York.

Shared services and consolidation are two ways to address high local spending and taxes, as the Empire Center has highlighted in two reports. Many cases of service-sharing arrangements involving different government entities throughout the state already exist. These arrangements can be expanded or serve as examples for other jurisdictions to emulate.

Still, consolidations and service-sharing arrangements are not cure-alls.[3] There’s no substitute for serious scrutiny of local governments’ bottom lines. Residents should demand appropriate actions to reduce costs, improve efficiency and make our communities more affordable and competitive. Benchmarking fiscal outcomes is a necessary first step towards achieving these goals.

On a per-capita basis, as shown below, towns have the lowest tax, debt and spending levels among local governments. Villages have the most debt, while counties collect the most in total taxes per capita—which reflects their control of sales taxes.

Methodology

Local governments and school districts report their expenditure, tax and debt data in annual reports compiled by OSC, which in turn posts the data online. Some local governments, mainly villages, fail to report their fiscal measures, making data unavailable for those jurisdictions.

To allow for more meaningful comparisons, the Empire Center recalculates the OSC data on taxes, debt and spending as per-capita values—i.e., relative to population. Property tax burdens are recalculated as effective rates, based on OSC estimates of assessed property values converted to full value based on equalization rates.

The Empire Center’s searchable database of tax and spending benchmarks for villages, towns, cities and counties has been posted at SeeThroughNY.net/benchmarking.

The database allows users to generate a single benchmark report, a comparison of several local governments, or a ranking of local governments on different measures of taxes, spending and debt. Users can also download the complete spreadsheets used to generate the reports. 

ENDNOTES

[1] Because population breakdowns are not available for school districts and special districts, they are excluded.

[2] Compare local governments using the Benchmarking web app at SeeThroughNY.net/benchmarking.

[3] See, for example, Cox, Wendell Government Efficiency: The Case for Local Control. Albany, New York: The Association of Towns of the State of New York (2008).

Ben Moulton is the Data Analyst for the Empire Center and its transparency website, SeeThroughNY. His duties include the collection, analysis, and mapping of the latest payroll, pension and other government data in order to make it accessible to the public.