WATERTOWN â The Tug Hill Commission recently released an issue paper titled The Forest Tax Exemption and Impact on Municipal Budgets. Using real property data from Lewis, Oswego and Jefferson counties, the paper documents 480-a enrollment changes and details the impacts of a large landowner enrollment on a small rural townâs budget.
Francis Yerdon, supervisor of the town of Osceola in Lewis County stated, âthis paper puts the problem right out where everyone should be able to understand just how serious the townsâ problems really are.â The town has experienced an 8.5% shift in property taxes onto other property owners in the town this year because of a large enrollment in the forest tax exemption program.