Rochester has plenty of plenty of things going for it that would attract people from outside the area, so what is it that holds us down. I don't believe it's the Kodak layoffs, the sky high sales taxes, or even the flight of manufacturing jobs to China. To misquote a popular campaign slogan, it's the property taxes stupid.
Rochester is in the best position for an economic recovery it has seen in twenty years. No, I'm not crazy. Our missing the property value bubble that has occurred during the past 15 years was the best thing that could have happened to us. We are completely hedged against any major down turn in the housing market, and we are one of the few affordable housing markets left in the country that isn't in the sticks. With the highest paying jobs in the nation being the most conducive to telecommuting we are in a fantastic position to attract high income workers tired of commuting three hours a day. The single biggest factor stopping someone from moving here is the property tax.
The D&C today has a great article that addresses this crisis and paints a clear picture of the problem. This excerpt about a Massachusetts family with Rochester ties illustrates this point perfectly.
But he's not coming home. The reason: property taxes.
"If the taxes were close to similar, we'd be back," he said. "It would be a no-brainer."
Here's the math: His present 2,600-square-foot house is worth about $525,000. Taxes are about $4,400 a year.
He could buy a similar house in a Rochester suburb for $300,000 to $350,000. But the taxes in, say, Canandaigua would be about $9,100. They would be even more in Webster — closer to $12,000, he figured.
"We're staying put," he said.
This is by no means an isolated case. In fact, one of my best friends moved to the Boston area to attend MIT. From there he got a job as a Microsoft consultant and settled in to a house roughly an hour west of the city. His average commute is three hours a day and his wife suffers the same fate. We spoke two months ago about his thoughts on moving to Rochester. With both of their parents living in Penfield, they are eager to return to the area. The quote above was nearly identical to our conversation. There was no way my buddy was paying a 300% tax burden for the "privilege" of living in NY.
Comparing the proportion of the average home's value that is paid in taxes annually, Monroe County ranks #2 in the Nation! Unbelievably, school taxes account for 60% of our property tax burden. I firmly believe that education is one of the highest priorities in American society, but this is an outrage. How efficiently do you think school funds are spent? The Rochester city school budget of $582.9 million is nearly 50% larger than the entire city budget of $403 Million. Why is it that serving 34,000 students costs that more than serving 219,000 residents? Why are Rochestarians not demanding the Teacher's Union reevaluate their belief that more money equals better education? I challenge any Teacher's Union member to graph the city school budget with graduation rates, average GPA, or any other success indicator and try to make the argument that giving more money to that bloated institution equals improvement. Without a union, we could probably demand that salaries of administrators had some performance based indexing... Sadly, to a union that's unthinkable.
We need to fix our property tax problem, or face economic collapse. The city schools are the first place to look for efficiency. Too bad Spitzer has decided to not ask for spending caps from schools... Must be that Teacher's Union endorsement has him out of crusader mode. Go Figure.
