Schoharie Clears New Senior Exemption

SCHOHARIE - On Wednesday evening, the Schoharie Town Board held a public hearing to discuss their first local law of the new year, in which senior citizens might find a greater tax exemption.

Giving the floor to Assessor Erin Smith, she explained that the current model the Town operates on recognizes senior citizens with incomes less than or equal to $18,100 to give them a 50% tax deduction.

However, with changes that the state recently made, she is suggesting that the Town bump that tax deduction up depending on how much less a senior makes beneath the $18,100 threshold, with the greatest bonus being maximized at 65%.

According to Assessor Smith’s report, if the increase would be adopted, eight out of twenty parcels that received last year’s 50% tax exemption would be affected, with one changing to 60% and seven changing to 65%.

She also noted that the math shows $50 in average savings for the affected households, and for the other 1700 parcels that would not be affected, the shifted tax burden would work out to be about two cents.

“That $50 could be someone’s groceries,” Assessor Smith concluded. 

With no questions from the public and every member in agreement, the Board held the public hearing open until 6 PM, after which they moved to adopt the local law.

In other news, the Board further considered a resolution for a waiver from the Planning Board about their training requirements in 2025.

The resolution states that under normal circumstances, a Planning Board member who has not completed a minimum of four hours of training shall not be eligible for reappointment, but this “may be waived by resolution of the Town Board when it is in the best interest of the Town to do so.”

It goes on to further list that the Planning Board did not have time for training in 2025, due to large projects like the Amazon warehouse having them take on “a large number of extra meetings, using time that would have otherwise been spent on completing training hours.”

After a brief conversation with Planning Board Chairman Kathryn Saddlemire to confirm this information, the Board saw no reason to deny the resolution, waiving the training requirements for 2025.