[hominamad]

I was having a discussion with a friend and we were trying to figure out the reasons for this discrepancy and how it is possible -

Take the best school districts in FFC, ones that are ranked top nationally, and compare the taxes with those of the best school districts in Westchester. The taxes in FFC are usually around 1/3 for comparable sized houses... Actually in a lot of towns, such as Ridgefield, you can get a lot more land, and a much bigger house, and pay 1/4 or 1/3 of the taxes you would pay in a place like Chappaqua, Rye, Scarsdale, etc. I realize that some of these places are a lot further from NYC, etc which I suppose plays a role, but there must be other reasons.

Here's another interesting number I found (I'm going under the assumption that these numbers are accurate, but I don't know for sure)...

Average teacher salary in Greenwich: $86k
https://k12.niche.com/t/greenwich-fairfield-ct/

Average teacher salary in Ridgefield: $75k
https://k12.niche.com/t/ridgefield-fairfield-ct/

Average teacher salary in Westport: $72k
https://k12.niche.com/t/westport-fairfield-ct/

Average teacher salary in SCARSDALE.................$138k !!
https://k12.niche.com/t/scarsdale-westchester-ny/

And if you look at national ranks, these FFC districts are as high, if not higher than a lot of these supposedly great Westchester districts. What is the reason behind these huge differences in numbers? Why are the taxes in Westchester so much more than neighboring FFC, while the schools are supposed as good or better in FFC? Even in a place like White Plains, the average teacher salary is $125k, and that's not even considered one of the top in Westchester. Are the teacher salaries what's driving the difference in taxes?

Has Connecticut figured out some kind of magic formula to allow the towns to have low taxes and still have great schools? Is this just all politics or are there deeper reasons for these discrepancies? Curious to know what others think.

Thanks!

[Robert137]

New York has always been more expensive than Connecticut. We see it most in FFC at the border of the two states. There are probably lots of reasons that go way beyond the schools, including the overall tax picture of each state. For example, remember that you will have to pay a vehicle tax in Conn, not in NY, I believe. Include that when you compare RE taxes of specific houses.

Property taxes in Conn are not low--except compared to Westchester and northern NJ!

[Beeker2211]

Westchester has numerous layers of property tax, and most Fairfield County municipalities only have 1 (notable exception Norwalk which has secondary areas of either higher or lower taxed zones) and no county property tax on top of that. So Schools, Fire, Police, Parks, etc are all administered at the city/town level and only has one tax bill. No districts, village, town, city, county levels of governance. IIRC Westchester nor NYS has property tax on automobiles, is that true?

[BicoastalAnn]

Westchester has a layer of county government that FFC does not. That means a host of salaries and other admin costs that Fairfield County residents aren't paying. Like take a look at the 40 departments at the county level that Westchester has, whereas FFC would use the resources at the state level (shared tax base as the rest of the state): Departments

[hominamad]

Yes, no auto property tax in NY thankfully, but even with that factored in, I can't imagine it makes a dent in the spread between CT and NY taxes.

Aren't CT state taxes also less than NY?

Look at this travesty, right across the border from CT: https://www.redfin.com/NY/Rye-Brook/.../home/20060076

A 1700 sq ft house, with .3 acres, and the taxes are $18k. Insane!

And I still don't understand how even the greatest school districts in CT , still somehow manage to have less taxes than Westchester. The reason I'm asking all of these questions, is that I live in Westchester now, and I'm wondering what exactly I'm paying for? That's why I was asking about the teacher salaries. Does most of my school tax dollars go towards paying these salaries?

[CTartist]

Originally Posted by hominamad

Look at this travesty, right across the border from CT: https://www.redfin.com/NY/Rye-Brook/.../home/20060076

A 1700 sq ft house, with .3 acres, and the taxes are $18k. Insane!

And I still don't understand how even the greatest school districts in CT , still somehow manage to have less taxes than Westchester.

Location, location, location. In the tri-state area all road lead to Manhattan. The closer you get to Manhattan the more expensive everything it is. I always marvel at how much a glass of ice tea (almost 2X more) is in Manhattan relative to my town of Trumbull. It's because Manhattan is the center of our universe in the tri-state area.

I am also thinking Rye Brook might be an exclusive enclave in Westchester?

[hominamad]

Originally Posted by CTartist

Location, location, location. In the tri-state area all road lead to Manhattan. The closer you get to Manhattan the more expensive everything it is. I always marvel at how much a glass of ice tea (almost 2X more) is in Manhattan relative to my town of Trumbull. It's because Manhattan is the center of our universe in the tri-state area.

I am also thinking Rye Brook might be an exclusive enclave in Westchester?

If by "exclusive enclave" you mean it's really expensive and has limited inventory, then yes. The thing about location though...Rye Brook is 4 miles from Greenwich and is as, if not more upscale than Rye Brook. Yet the taxes are a fraction in Greenwich. How does the town operate, and still manage to have great schools, while with significantly lower taxes than it's Westchester neighbor 5 minutes away?

[BicoastalAnn]

It's not about distance to NYC or necessarily quality when it comes to taxes. It's about the government structure and the the tax base in that jurisdiction. Greenwich has a particularly low property tax in FFC because the high property values add more dollars to the town's coffers, which reduces the need for everyone else (this is my super simple characterization). That's why the more disadvantaged areas tend to have higher tax rates.

Looking at Westchester, the towns that have the lowest tax rates are ones where there is a high tax-paying corporate base to offset everyone else's bill. The more desirable towns tend to be more residential, with little to no corporate presence, hence why the residents need to pay more to pick up that slack.

[allanny13]

Originally Posted by hominamad

If by "exclusive enclave" you mean it's really expensive and has limited inventory, then yes. The thing about location though...Rye Brook is 4 miles from Greenwich and is as, if not more upscale than Rye Brook. Yet the taxes are a fraction in Greenwich. How does the town operate, and still manage to have great schools, while with significantly lower taxes than it's Westchester neighbor 5 minutes away?

Comparing Rye Brook vs Greenwich is pretty difficult as Greenwich is fairly huge and has an incredible tax base of some of the wealthiest people in the country, as well as hedge funds, etc (this is why Greenwich has some of the lowest taxes in the state). Rye Brook is a small village, albeit affluent, but doesn't have anywhere near the same tax base as Greenwich. Blind Brook's entire school district is less than 500 vs Greenwich's almost 3k. I believe the differential overall between Westchester and FFC comes down to the multiple unnecessary iterations of school districts in Westchester as well as the whole concept of county government, as someone else already pointed out. There's also always someone who will be willing to pay more in taxes for proximity to the city (and I guess willing to pay their teachers more as well? Not sure on that one). Vehicle taxes are more or less negligible.

[NewJeffCT]

the top school systems in Westchester are often much smaller than the top school systems in FFC. I had looked at numbers last year some time, and Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien and Westport all have more students than any of the top school systems in in Westchester. I think Scarsdale Sr and Greeley in Chappaqua were the only ones that were in the same ballpark. If Greenwich had four high schools instead of one,and a corresponding increase in the number of elementary schools & junior high schools, their taxes would also be much higher. Schools like Byram Hills, Blind Brook, Edgebrook, Bronxville would be among the smaller high schools in all of Connecticut. (Bronxville graduated 102 the other year, meaning there are just over 400 in the entire high school!)

I believe NY also has a "mansion tax" on any homes over $1 million as well, which I'm sure offsets a property tax on cars.