Towns and Villages in Schenectady County received over $3 million in payments from Schenectady County in 2010 as the local share of Metroplex Development Authority sales tax revenue was distributed recently. Since 1999, when Metroplex was founded, municipalities have received $35.17 million.
Schenectady County is pleased to provide this funding to towns and villages, which represents their share of the Metroplex sales tax revenue, said Chairwoman of the Schenectady County Legislature Susan Savage in a statement on Tuesday, Feb. 22.
Metroplex receives 0.5 percent of the county sales tax, which 70 percent is used for projects and the remaining 30 percent is handed over to municipalities. Sales tax revenue increased by 2.65 percent in the county for 2010, which lead to the fifth highest overall local payment in Metroplex’s 12-year history.
`They get to use it for anything they want,` said Ray Gillen, chairman of Metroplex. `Most of them use it to lower the amount of taxes they have to raise from property tax owners.`
Gillen said he was pleased to see sales tax revenues continue to increase despite the difficult economy.
`It was a tough year for the national economy, so it was nice to see it go up,` said Gillen. `Even in a very tough economic climate we were able to see a sales tax increase.`
The results for 2010 funding and total funding since 1999 are as follows: Rotterdam with $1.01 million in 2010 and $11.8 million for total funding; Niskayuna with $724,845 in 2010 and $8.36 million overall; Scotia with $284,188 in 2010 and $3.27 million overall; Glenville with $722,424 in 2010 and $8.49 million overall; Duanesburg with $193,695 in 2010 and $2.23 million overall; Princetown with $76,268 in 2010 and $880,647 overall; Delanson with $13,619 in 2010 and $157,139 overall.
The local share of funding is distributed according to the population of each municipality.“