All real property in the City of Watervliet shall be assessed according to its condition and ownership as of the first day of March. The assessor shall in each year prepare an assessment roll and a duplicate thereof, both of which shall be deemed originals of the persons and property taxable within the City, in the same manner and form, as is required by law for the preparation of town assessment rolls except as modified by this act. In the assessment of any land in said city for any purpose, it shall be sufficient to state the name of one of the owners or occupants of said land, and also the street and number of any building thereon; but if the land be vacant or the building thereon not numbered, then the name of the street on which it fronts shall be given. In case no inhabited building is on the land, the owner may be designated as unknown. No error in the name of the owner or occupant of property so assessed shall invalidate the assessment. The assessor on the first day of May in each year shall complete such assessment roll and shall file the same with the City Clerk and shall forthwith give notice by publishing once in the official paper that such roll is completed and filed in the office of the City Clerk and that all persons interested may examine the same at the City Clerk's Office and that also on the fourth Tuesday of May next coming, at a place specified in such notice, the Board of Assessment Review will sit to review the same from two o'clock to four o'clock in the afternoon and from seven o'clock to nine o'clock in the evening. (L.L. No. 1-1971, § 1, 5-13-1971; L.L. No. 1-1975, § 1, 7-17-1975; L.L. No. 1-1999, § I, 12-29-1999)
The assessors shall meet at the time and place
specified in such notice and review the assessment. Their sessions
shall not continue beyond the fifteenth day of June. During the time
the assessors review any tax or assessment they shall have power to
add or insert in such assessment roll any property liable to assessment
and the valuation thereof which may have been omitted from such roll,
upon giving personal notice to the owner of such property or to his
agent, or to the occupant thereof if the same be real property, at
least two days prior to adding the same. Except as modified by this
act, the board of assessors shall have all the powers given by the
Tax Law of the State of New York to assessors sitting to hear complaints
in relation to assessments, and the proceedings in relation thereto
shall be the same as provided by the Tax Law of the State. Any person
assessed upon the assessment roll claiming to be aggrieved by any
assessment for property therein, may review the same in the manner
provided by law. On or before the 1st day of July the corrected assessment
roll, together with the assessors minutes shall be filed in the office
of the Commissioner of Accounts. (L.L. No. 1-1999, § I,
12-29-1999)
The commissioner of accounts shall immediately
thereupon proceed to prepare the roll for the ensuing year. He shall,
upon the written direction of the assessors, correct all clerical
errors appearing therein, and shall deliver the duplicate original
of the assessment roll as corrected and certified under the seal of
the city, to the chairman or clerk of the Board of Supervisors of
the County of Albany, in the first week at its next annual meeting.
The Board of Supervisors of Albany County shall in each year equalize
the assessments within the City of Watervliet with the assessments
of the town in said county, in the same manner as the assessments
are required by law to be equalized between such towns. The board
of supervisors shall not cause the state and county tax apportioned
to said city to be spread upon any tax roll of property within the
city, but shall, by resolution, ascertain and direct the amount of
tax to be levied in the city for state and county purposes, and shall,
on or before the fifteenth day of December in each year, certify such
resolutions under the hands of the chairman and the clerk of the Board
of Supervisors, to the council of the city and file such resolution,
together with such assessment roll, with the commissioner of accounts.
The council must annually cause to be levied
and raised by general tax upon all taxable property, real and personal,
in the city, according to the valuation upon the assessment roll for
the current year, corrected as aforesaid:
1.Â
The amount of taxes certified to the council of the
city by the board of supervisors, to be assessed upon the city.
2.Â
The various funds for the maintenance and conduct
of the city business and affairs.
3.Â
Such amounts as shall be necessary to meet the principal
and interest on the bonded and other indebtedness of the city falling
due during the fiscal year for which the tax is levied and to meet
all indebtedness remaining unpaid on all judgments against the city;
and such further sums as shall have been voted at a regular city election,
or at a special city election called for the purpose, and also for
such other sums as the council or any of the boards created hereinafter
is authorized to expend for purposes specified in this act.
The commissioner of accounts, under the direction
of the council, shall extend and apportion the state, county and city
tax upon the assessment roll delivered to him in each year, and no
other extension and apportionment of the state and county tax need
be made. Such roll shall then and on or before the tenth day of January,
or as soon thereafter as practicable, be delivered to the chamberlain
of the city with a warrant annexed, under the seal of the city, commanding
him to receive, levy and collect sums in the roll specified as assessed
against the person or property therein mentioned, or described, with
such percentage or penalty and interest as in this act provided. From
the time of the receipt of the tax roll and warrant by the chamberlain,
all taxes assessed levied upon any real estate shall be a lien upon
such real estate for the amount thereof with percentage and interest,
until the same shall be fully paid.
[1]
Editor's Note: Ordinance No. 6, adopted 1-1-1920,
vested the duties of the Chamberlain in the Director of Finance.
Immediately upon the delivery of the city roll and warrant to the director of finance, he shall publish at least once a week for two successive weeks, a notice in the official newspaper of the city, that he will attend to his office with said roll and warrant, after the first publication of said notice, Sundays and legal holidays excepted, from nine o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon, to receive city, county and state taxes, and it shall be his duty to attend accordingly. City, state and county taxes may be payable in one installment, on or before January thirty-first in each year, and no deduction shall be made or allowed therefrom. City, state and county taxes may be paid in two equal installments, payable respectively on or before the thirty-first day of January and the thirty-first day of July in each year. If one-half of the amount of any city, state and county tax on the tax roll be paid on or before the thirty-first day of January, and one-half thereof be paid on or before the thirty-first day of July in the same year, no interest or penalty shall be charged. On all taxes remaining unpaid after the thirty-first day of January, except as herein otherwise provided, interest shall be charged at the rate of one per centum per month to be computed from the first day of January of the current year. Immediately upon receiving any tax the director of finance shall enter in a column of a book prepared for the purpose, and opposite the name of the persons or corporations paying the same, the fact of payment and the date thereof, and shall give the person paying the same a receipt therefor. All receipts issued by the director of finance for taxes paid to him, shall be numbered consecutively commencing with number one of the first receipt issued for taxes for any one year, and he shall not receipt more than one year's taxes on the same property in one tax receipt, but shall use a separate and distinct series of numbers or receipts issued for the taxes of each year and for which the same is levied and assessed. The director of finance shall cause an tax receipts to be printed and numbered and firmly bound together in book form and to be in duplicate and each duplicate to bear the same number. (L.L. No. 1-1973, § 1, 11-8-1973; New York State Laws 1976, c. 681, § 1)
Water rents shall be paid as provided by section
one hundred and thirty-seven of article twelve of this charter.
In case any of the taxes mentioned in the said assessment roll remain unpaid or uncollected on the fifteenth day of September succeeding the delivery of the said rolls to the director of finance, up to which time all money paid on account of such taxes shall be paid to the director of finance, the director of finance shall deliver to the county officer responsible for enforcing collection of delinquent taxes on the said fifteenth day of September in each year an account, to be entered in one of the books containing the description of the unpaid taxes, of the several amounts collected by him for taxes, and of the amount of taxes then remaining due, with a description of the property liable for the same, as described in the assessment roll; making oath before the said county officer, or in case of his absence, before the mayor or recorder of said city, to be duly entered after such statement, that the sums mentioned in such account remain unpaid and uncollected, and said director of finance shall thereupon be discharged from all liability for the amount uncollected by him and shall be credited therewith by the said county officer. In making the return of unpaid taxes to the said county officer, the director of finance shall add five per cent to the amount of each tax as levied, which five per cent shall be retained by the county. In the event that the director of finance fails to do so, the said county officer shall make such addition. It shall be the duty of the said county officer to enforce such unpaid taxes pursuant to applicable law. (New York State Laws 1976, c. 681, § 2)[1]
[1]
Editor's Note: New York State Laws 1976, c. 681, § 2 amended the Charter by repealing §§ 121 through 128 and adding thereto §§ 121 and 122 as herein set forth. Prior to repeal, §§ 121 through 128 pertained to the collection of delinquent taxes and water rents, the sale of real estate to satisfy same, and the powers of the council relative to erroneous assessments, as derived unamended from the Laws of 1914, c. 444, as renumbered. Section 3 of the New York State Laws of 1976, c. 681, provided that prosecution may proceed under the repealed sections (121 through 128) for any offense, etc., occurring before the effective date of this act (January 1, 1977), as if said repeal had not been effected.
It shall be the duty of the director of finance
to pay over to the comptroller of Albany county at the end of each
month during the period the tax roll and warrant is in his hands all
moneys received by him for taxes on such roll; provided however, that
he shall make such payment only after the receipt of all moneys raised
for city purposes. He shall take duplicate receipts for each payment,
one of which shall be immediately filed with the commissioner of accounts.
All other moneys received by him for taxes, sewer rents and water
rents shall daily be deposited in such bank or banks as are made depositories
of the city. Except as otherwise provided by this charter, the director
of finance shall settle with the county comptroller for state and
county taxes in the manner required by law of town collectors, and
with the council for city taxes and assessments in the same manner.
At the time of the delivering to him of the rolls and tax warrants
the director of finance shall receipt for the same, and shall then
be charged with the whole amount, which he is thereby authorized to
collect. He shall not be authorized to credit himself with any amount
as unpaid on any warrant until he shall make and file with the commissioner
of accounts an affidavit stating the amount unpaid, and setting forth
the reason in each case why such tax or assessment is or has not been
collected. The council may thereupon order and authorize said director
of finance to credit himself with the whole or any part of said tax
or assessment unpaid and the director of finance shall be credited
only with such amount as the council shall so order. Upon settling
with the council the director of finance must show that he has duly
settled with the county comptroller for state and county funds.
In the event that within two years after the return of unpaid taxes to the county and the amounts recovered on such taxes by the city of Watervliet are less than the amount levied for city purposes, the county officer responsible for enforcing delinquent taxes shall pay over to the director of finance such sums as are required to cover the amount levied for city purposes. (New York State Laws 1976, 1977, c. 681, § 2)[1]
