North Shore School Board is now distraught over loss of Glenwood Plant. However the school board sheds alligator tears over the loss of tax revenue. The Board won’t remind you how they tried to squeeze LIPA for even more money in 2004.

Lipa has responded by closing the plant.

NEWSDAY

Kessel calls for 2-year freeze on LIPA’s tax rate

Published: October 27, 2004 8:00 PM By ERIK HOLM. STAFF WRITER

Long Island Power Authority Chairman Richard Kessel yesterday called for school districts and others that levy property taxes to freeze the power authority’s tax rate for the next two years, saying LIPA already pays $278 million a year – up 25 percent from five years ago. But LIPA isn’t alone in having to deal with skyrocketing taxes, especially in Nassau County. “Everyone’s taxes have probably gone up 25 percent” in the past five years in Nassau, County Assessor Harvey Levinson said yesterday. “LIPA isn’t alone on that.”

Though Levinson’s office could not immediately confirm the average tax increase in Nassau in that time, it said the total amount of money collected through taxes is up 27.8 percent, and the average homeowner is paying 45 percent more in school taxes – which makes up the largest portion of the tax bill. Figures for Suffolk were not immediately available. Kessel’s demand for a tax freeze comes amid wrangling among LIPA, the Nassau assessor and the North Shore School District over payments LIPA proposes to make on two small plants it owns in Glenwood Landing. Kessel and the power authority contend that LIPA, as a state-run agency, doesn’t have to pay anything at all, but has offered to pay so-called payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOT payments, amounting to $2 million on the two plants. PILOTs are the equivalent of property taxes for government-owned parcels of land.

But the North Shore school board has said that, under its reading of the rules that govern LIPA, there’s a chance that the power authority or KeySpan may be responsible for much more than $2 million. In the middle is Levinson, who said yesterday that he “was close to making a decision” as to how much LIPA would have to pay.

Kessel cautioned yesterday, however, that the small plants in Glenwood Landing were among 16 across Long Island for which LIPA had offered to pay $2 million apiece in property taxes. Any increase in the payment at one plant, he said, would mean the price LIPA would have to pay at the other plants would likely go up, as well. And since any increase in taxes to LIPA translates into increased costs – and potential increased rates – for its customers,

Kessel said he didn’t want any more taxing entities to “dump their problems on the back of LIPA.” Already, LIPA customers spend about 2 1/2 months every year paying the costs that LIPA incurs to pay school districts, towns, counties and other taxing districts, Kessel said. Some of the $278 million in property taxes and PILOTs that LIPA claims it pays is actually paid by KeySpan, which LIPA employs to run the electrical system on Long Island. But LIPA reimburses KeySpan for the cost of its property tax bills. Kessel’s demand for a tax freeze comes as oil prices – the other rising cost outside the control of the power authority – continue to climb.