Rogowsky Hails 55% Tax Reduction For
Port Chester Sewer District
Savings Result of Rogowsky’s Sewer Consolidation Plan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 9, 2007

Contact: Betsy DeSoye, Director of Communications; Tel: (914) 995-3277

According to County Legislator Martin Rogowsky (D, I, WF - Harrison), Port Chester Sewer District taxpayers are seeing a dramatic reduction in their sewer tax bills this April, thanks to the sewer consolidation law the County Board passed this past December at his urging.

“As a result of the consolidation, the operations and management (O&M) costs charged to the Port Chester Sewer District amounted to $1.9 million as opposed to $4.2 million,” said Rogowsky. “That represents a 55% reduction in sewer taxes for those in the Port Chester Sewer District and the start of a fairer system of apportioning sewer taxes Countywide.”
The law consolidated the O&M costs of the County’s thirteen sewer districts into a single administrative account, terminating the long-time practice of billing each district for actual costs expended by each district.
Rogowsky, the Board’s Majority Leader, said he had championed the cause for consolidation since 1990 because the system was so clearly inequitable. “Taxpayers in Port Chester were paying four to five times more in sewer taxes than other Westchester residents because they were shouldering a disproportionate share of cleaning up Long Island Sound to comply with unfunded federal and state environmental mandates,” said Rogowsky. “The problem is that other communities are benefiting from, but not contributing to, the cost of upgrading treatment facilities on the Sound.”

Rogowsky noted that pollution of the Sound had many sources, some not necessarily geographically close to it. “Prior to the consolidation, the Sound Shore communities were footing the bill for what amounts to a regional problem. The consolidation helped cure that inequity,” Rogowsky said.