Seniors Work Off Property Taxes
Programs Aid Homeowners and Towns That Want to Keep Them
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Wednesday, December 26, 2007
GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there, and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.
Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either.
The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.
"People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.
He envisions retired doctors mentoring schoolchildren, retired accountants helping with the town's finances, retired lawyers offering their services for a discount. There are plenty of less-skilled jobs that need doing, as well, he said.
"It's not like we're going to see grandma running the snowplow," he said. "There are lots of things people can do for the town, and it wouldn't cost us that much to pay them."
The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.
Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes -- perhaps $2,000 to the town -- and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.
Talking to Feiner last week at the town senior center, she said, "I would work as long as it was a job where I could sit."
"You could be a receptionist!" Feiner said. "You could greet people right here, when they come in."
"That I would love," Davison said.
Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the program sounded interesting, as long as it was not limited to menial work. "It's certainly in line with what we stand for: keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging," he said.
