This year, Feb. 15 and March 15 are Sundays; Feb. 16 is a Monday holiday

Updated: 01/16/09 08:28 AM

By Matthew Spina
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

The calendar will push back this year’s due date for property taxes in Erie County by a couple of days.

In most years, Feb. 15 is the due date for county taxes and the taxes levied by Erie County’s three cities and larger towns — towns with more than 10,000 people.

But because Feb. 15 falls on a Sunday this year, and Monday, Feb. 16, is Presidents Day, the taxes are not due until Feb. 17 in the cities and larger towns.

Taxes for towns with fewer than 10,000 people usually are due March 15 in Erie County. But that also date falls on a Sunday this year, so property owners can pay their taxes March 16 without penalty.

Erie County’s annual rite of tax collection was tossed askew this year for another reason — the lawsuit between the Erie County Legislature and County Executive Chris Collins.

The Legislature’s Democrats believed they had rid the 2009 budget of a tax increase. But when Collins said he intended to hike taxes anyway, the Democrats took him to court — giving county workers less time to print and distribute some 365,000 bills.

A State Supreme Court justice Monday concluded the lawsuit with a decision that sets this year’s tax rate at $5.03 for every $1,000 of assessed value. That’s almost 2 percent more than last year’s rate of $4.94 but still less than Collins wanted.

The new rate will add $9 a year to the tax bill on a $100,000 home. Collins had argued for a tax rate that would have added $24 a year.

After Justice John A. Michalek’s ruling, the county’s director of real property tax services, Joseph Maciejewski, scrapped a preliminary set of bills and started printing new ones. He also started printing the bills for each town and city, as county government does every year.

Maciejewski expected town officials and workers from the cities of Lackawanna and Tonawanda to start picking up their bills today. Maciejewski, through an outside company, folds and mails the bills for the City of Buffalo.

Until the lawsuit was settled, Legislature Chairwoman Lynn M. Marinelli, D-Town of Tonawanda, and Legislature Clerk Robert M. Graber refused to sign the documents — the tax warrants — that let tax collectors accept payment for the county’s taxes.

Marinelli and Graber signed the papers Thursday afternoon, and Maciejewski also sent tax bills electronically to the escrow companies that handle the majority of property tax payments for homeowners.

The delay caused by the court case created other problems for county government. Those problems will be felt by companies that do business with Erie County.

The comptroller’s office each January immediately spends the cash from early property tax payments. The comptroller’s office this year, assuming property tax payments will arrive more slowly, has slowed payments to county vendors to ensure the county can meet some major obligations due in early February.

Such cash flow issues have been common in Erie County in recent years as the comptroller has protected cash during the ongoing dispute with the control board over how to borrow money for major projects and repairs. Until the years-old standoff is settled, the county cannot borrow money for those major needs.

Legislators have been hearing complaints from road contractors especially, and at a meeting Thursday, lawmakers asked Timothy C. Callan, a deputy to Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz, what they should tell those businesses demanding payment.

“You can direct them to me,” Callan said. “I have been talking to angry vendors since May.”