Mayor: City should avoid PILOT deals

The Daily Star reported that Mayor Dick Miller is not recommending PILOT agreements with the city's large nonprofit entities.

Slightly more than half of the real property value in the city is owned by property tax exempt nonprofits, particularly Hartwick College, the State University College at Oneonta and A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital.

Earlier this year, Miller said Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreements could be one way to help alleviate projected budget deficits.

But in a recent memo to aldermen, Miller said nonprofit organizations are as strapped for cash as the city and the city should look at other arrangements with the institutions.

"Clearly, the city benefits from the presence of many not-for-profits, ranging from two large colleges, one public and one private, the Fox Hospital, the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club, Opportunities for Otsego and a wide range of other service-providing organizations and churches," Miller said.

But he said the city bears most of the burden for providing services for the institutions.

"It doesn't even out in the sense that the employees of the hospital and the colleges do not all live in the city," Miller said. "The costs of having these institutions here are born by the city almost exclusively, and the economic benefit is a regional one."

Not-for-profit institutions own 51 percent of the real property value in the city.

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