OGDENSBURG New York (WWNY) – If you’re a property owner in Ogdensburg, bad news – county taxes are now due in January.
That’s three months earlier than they have been due in the past, in April.
And it’s the result of continued battling between the city and county government, who are at war over taxes, their obligations to each other, and who is behaving worse.
In this case, the city elected to stop collecting county taxes on the county’s behalf, a job it had done for a long time. Under that arrangement, taxes were collected in April.
So the county is now doing its own collections. It has opened an office in Ogdensburg for people to pay their taxes and – in a notice to taxpayers – has set January as the time taxes are due.
“If you’re paying your taxes, this is an unplanned for expense in the month of January.,” city manager Stephen Jellie told 7 News Wednesday.
“If your taxes are escrowed, likely your escrow is gonna be short because this was not a period of time when taxes are normally taken out, so again, I think it’s gonna pose some financial strain for some people.”
Jellie doesn’t hold back, when it comes to his opinion on why the county changed the due date.
“I think this is just a deliberate, spiteful move because the county is not happy that Ogdensburg is fighting to make itself well and not be under the oppressive rule of county government any longer.”
Now it’s important to note that historically, county taxes have been collected in all the other towns and villages of St. Lawrence County in January.
But Jellie says the county, at the very least, could have kept Ogdensburg on an April schedule this year, giving people plenty of notice next year’s taxes would fall due in January.
County officials were having none of it Wednesday.
County treasurer Renee Cole said in a statement that the city’s actions left the county and the citizens of Ogdensburg “in a difficult position.”
“It is abundantly clear that the city has no concern regarding the collection dates which have been established by the county for all municipalities in the county, with the exception of the city, as the dates of collection of county taxes have remained the same for decades,” Cole said in her statement.
“It is disingenuous for the city to now suggest that they were not aware that the county collects its taxes on January 1. Given the action taken by the city in September of 2021 it became incumbent upon the county to notify the city residents of the changes and the direct impact it will have on them as the city failed to do so.”
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