Published: May 12, 2008 06:12 pm            

MONDAY: Two Lockport-based county legislators will try again to persuade Niagara County to drop the tax it applies to the city’s raw water line. (6:09 p.m.)

Legislators Tony Nemi and Keith McNall plan to introduce legislation next week that would have the county fully forgive tax on the line carrying water into the City of Lockport from the Niagara River at North Tonawanda.

If a majority of legislators go along, McNall and Nemi said Monday, substantial savings for the city would come at a minimal cost to the county at large.

The county received $51,086 in tax from the city water fund last year. Were the tax forgiven, the department of real property tax services estimated the impact on all county taxpayers at less than 1 cent per $1,000 of assessed value.

“That’s a very small impact on county tax and a very big impact on the city,” McNall said.

Taxes on the raw water line are a sore subject in the city of Lockport. The line carries raw water from the Niagara River to the filtration plant on Summit Street and there’s no other way to get water into the city.

The line runs through multiple municipalities that all put assessed value on the line and land around it; in turn, the City of North Tonawanda, the towns of Wheatfield and Pendleton, the (what) school districts and Niagara County all tax their shares. In 2006, the city paid about $260,000 in taxes, including $63,000 to the county. Taxes consumed about 7 percent of the city’s water fund budget last year.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.