“How much more can we take?” said John Keller, who works as a manager for PODS in Rockland and lives in Highland Mills. He takes his car to work each day and wondered why the mid-Hudson businesses from the self-employed to giants like IBM were paying the MTA mobility tax.
“Why should we pay for the MTA shortfall?” asked Keller. “They (MTA) just gave themselves a big fat raise, but there won”™t be one for me.”
The tax is 34 cents on each $100 dollars of payroll and has proven unpopular in proportion to distance from MTA services.
Keller was among dozens of people who came to Nyack”™s Jewish Community Center Sept. 21 for an after-the-fact meeting to find out what Rockland representatives were doing to derail the tax, which is retroactive to March 31.
Public hearings were held prior to the tax”™s establishment.
Legislators from Westchester and Rockland, along with several local supervisors, were also in the audience to hear what state Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City, Assembly representatives Ken Zembrowski, D-New City, and Ellen Jaffe, D-Ramapo, had to say about MTA letters now arriving in Hudson Valley businesses”™ mailboxes.
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Though party affiliations differ, you”™d be hard pressed to find any member of the state Legislature in the valley in favor of the tax, which will impact every business outside the five boroughs.
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“Richard Ravitch and his commission threatened to put tolls on New York City”™s free bridges and raise commuter fares. Instead, we ended up with a few men in a room,” said Morahan. “In the middle of the night, they came up with this plan to tax 34 cents of every hundred dollars of payroll on each and every business in the MTA”™s jurisdiction. That works out well for New York City, but leaves the majority of us, particularly on the west side of the Hudson, not getting any benefit from this scenario, just the burden.”
Morahan went on to question why schools were being taxed but then told they would receive the money back: “But they don”™t know when,” said the longtime senator. “Why make them pay it at all if they will get it right back?” Instead, said Morahan, the MTA will return the money after each school district has been scrutinized by several agencies and then payment approved by the Legislature.Â
Jaffee and Zembrowski were equally adamant in disliking how the agreement was reached.
Jaffee told listeners:“Small business is the lifeblood of this region. There”™s no ”˜sunset”™ on this tax.”
What is most outrageous, said the trio, was Rockland ”“ which already pays $44 million to the MTA through mortgage and sales taxes ”“ will now be paying double that figure. “Most of our employers and employees do not leave the county and commute by car. We have little, if any, services from MTA,” said Zembrowski. “We are getting a lot of nothing for a lot of something.”
Both Orange and Rockland voted to get out of the MTA, but whether it will actually happen is another matter. Orange doesn”™t want the mobility tax, but it does want a transit link for Stewart International Airport from the west of the Hudson line”™s Salisbury Mills station two miles from the airport. Morahan told the audience that, in the past, under Gov. Mario Cuomo”™s tenure, Rockland had voted to get out of the MTA, but pulled out after Cuomo had signed off on the request.
Jaffe said a bi-partisan group from both Orange and Rockland formed a coalition in January 2009 to publicly fight the proposed tax.
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“It”™s been all over the media,” said Morahan. “We are not foolish enough to think that this tax is not going to impact our property tax bills. The school districts and municipalities can”™t pay it, so there is no place else to turn but the real property tax owners. Unfortunately, when this bill was voted on, we were outnumbered ”“ our upstate legislators weren”™t affected by this bill, so they voted for it.”
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Commuters in the suburbs now pay a 27 percent increase in fares, while those within the five boroughs received a 12 percent hike.
“All this, and we have one-quarter of a vote,” said Jaffee. Morahan said a proposal that the counties that shared one vote pay one-quarter of the proposed tax was shot down. “We thought it had a chance, but it was shot down in the middle of the night. Just as a few men in a room crafted it, it was decided on the same way.”
Morahan said a bi-partisan coalition of legislators from the five mid-Hudson counties is being formed and will continue to fight the tax, which comes due Nov. 2 and is retroactive to March 31.
“The MTA mobility tax is not going away, but neither are the legislators,” Morahan, Jaffee and Zembrowski assured the group.
“We want to see a forensic audit done of this agency,” said Zembrowski.
“A hike from $44 million a year to $80 million for Rockland alone is not only unacceptable, it”™s unjustifiable,” added Jaffee.
Richard Ravitch, who crafted the bailout, is now second in command in New York state following a recent court ruling. “It stings,” said one nonprofit leader, upon hearing the news.
