Results tagged “financecommittee”

And the real estate news keeps coming. Along with rising heating, water and gasoline bills, New York homeowners can now look forward to the second highest increase in housing taxes in 14 years. According to figures given to the Times by the City Council's Finance Committee the tax rates for one-, two- and three-family houses will be increased by 4.3 percent, while the rate on condos, co-ops and rental buildings will go up by 1.5 percent. Further, these increases will go up retroactively back to July 1. Why the sudden jump in housing taxes? Because housing taxes are now directly related to the price of commercial real estate and if one goes up faster than the other, i.e. the current housing boom, than the faster rising one has to take a bigger brunt of the taxes (got that?). How does the Bloomberg administration talk its way out of this one? It falls back on the "$400 housing rebate," which, admittedly for the average homeowner, does negate the increase.

Try your hand at figuring out how well you could manage New York City's finances by playing Gotham Gazette's Budget Game. Newsday looks at the game:

Accusations that Mayor Bloomberg favors Manhattan more than the other boroughs aren't that surprising, but politicos are taking advantage of Bloomby's missteps. Prompted by the Mayor considering rethinking the reduced garbage pick-up proposal - but only in Manhattan - city officials are up in arms. Especially City Comptroller William Thompson, who has been the most vocal about the apparent favoritism, who said, "We must not engage in borough warfare." That makes some others think Thompson has other things in mind, like the city's Democratic Finance Committee chair David Weprin who said Thompson's words "sounded like a mayoral candidate's statement."