It is not easy to understand how property taxes are calculated in New York State (NYS). We are providing this simplified overview to help the BCSD community better understand the tax calculations within the District.

The first thing to understand is that your overall property taxes are made up of several different taxes: County taxes, Town/Village taxes, Special District taxes (only applicable if your property is located in a Special District subset of your town) and School Taxes. We will be focusing on School Taxes for this overview.

School districts in NYS are funded through school taxes in addition to federal and state aid. A school district is a taxing jurisdiction separate from a Town or Village - the Towns and Villages are simply the collectors of the school taxes and have no authority regarding school district budgets. The boundaries of the school district create the school taxing jurisdiction. In NYS, more than 700 school districts distribute their taxes among segments of several municipalities, just as the Bedford Central School District distributes their taxes among segments of the 5 municipalities within the boundaries of the school district. These municipalities include:

  • Bedford
  • Mount Kisco
  • New Castle
  • North Castle
  • Pound Ridge

School taxes in NYS are based upon the assessed value of a property, and properties of greater value pay more than properties of lower value (i.e., a property worth $600,000 is going to pay more tax than a property worth $300,000). Simple enough, but in a school district like the BCSD, that gets complicated since every Town/Village has different levels of assessment. 

  • What's an assessment, and how do they differ from town to town? Check this out: Assessments
  • How does the state ensure that taxes are equitable from town to town? Here you go: Equalization
  • How does this all work in the BCSD real world? Take a look at this: BCSD Taxes

Understand the basics? Have more questions? Hopefully we covered it here: Tax FAQs