When local residents head to the polls in November, officials in the Town of Saugerties are hoping the public will see the wisdom in changing the selection of tax collector from an elected four-year role to an appointed position.
The Town Board held a special meeting on Friday, July 28 in an effort to ensure the measure could be included on ballots later this year. The position has traditionally been one of stability, with current Councilwoman Peg Nau previously serving as the town’s tax collector for over 25 years. Julie Dunn then served in the role for a decade before stepping down in August 2022 in the first year of her third four-year term.
Dunn’s resignation coincided with the town being scammed out of around $7,000 by a fraudulent claim to forward a town employee’s pay to an out-of-state bank. The scam occurred for over two months before being detected, and Supervisor Fred Costello said it happened when Dunn, in her dual role as town payroll manager, didn’t thoroughly vet the request.
Next Jill Zarcone was appointed to the job with an eye on filling out the remainder of Dunn’s term at the polls, but she left to take a job in the private sector before that could happen. Diane Friedman was most recently appointed tax collector by the Town Board, and plans to run on the Conservative Party line in November. In January, Zarcone was nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the position, but she withdrew from the race after leaving the tax collector job. The Republican Party has not made a nomination for tax collector.
Costello said the turnover in the tax collector position over the past few years has been counterintuitive to a role that thrives with consistency.
“It’s really the relationships with the banks, with the school (district), with other potential lending institutions to just understand what their expectations are and what we need from them,” he said. “Those things we’ve had the privilege of taking advantage of and enjoying for a long time have all been in jeopardy over the last 18 months. And if whoever gets elected now, gets unseated two years from now, then all that’s a restart once again. And I think that’s potentially unhealthy to successful tax receiving.”
While the Town Board is optimistic the public will support the tax collector being made an appointed position, they are still required to get approval at the polls.
“The legacy of that position is it has been an elected position forever and this would be a fundamental change to the organization of the local government,” Costello said, adding that he wouldn’t want it any other way. “It’s not a decision the five members of the town board, or at least three, should make without public input. We welcome the public’s perspective on this. I’m happy to share why I think this is worth consideration, but ultimately it is our decision as a citizenry to make this call or not.”
Costello said the position of tax collector isn’t political in nature, and though it’s traditionally been up to the public to fill the job every four years in Saugerties, there’s no legal requirement preventing the proposed switch.
“I do think there’s a lot of merit to consider it, and it’s not unprecedented,” Costello said. With three months to go before Election Day, the supervisor said there’s plenty of time to extol the value of an appointed tax collector. Now it’s up to the town to get the word out and, ideally, for voters to listen.
“I feel that the public is not as aware of this potential change as we would like them to be,” Costello said. “We did the public hearing processes, and they were not well attended. And some of the emails and conversations I’ve had with people led me to think that the public’s not as aware as we would hope…People should familiarize themselves with this and try to form an opinion about how they would like to see this go.”
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