Plan would let seniors work off taxes

GREENBURGH, N.Y. – Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn’t want to leave Greenburgh.

Greenburgh doesn’t want her to leave, either.

The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.

Town Supervisor Paul Feiner envisions retired doctors mentoring schoolchildren, retired accountants helping with the town’s finances, retired lawyers offering their services for a discount. But there are plenty of less-skilled jobs that need doing, he said.

“It’s not like we’re going to see grandma running the snowplow,” he said.

The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation’s third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.

Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the program sounded interesting, as long as it wasn’t limited to menial work. “It’s certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging,” he said.

Feiner is suggesting creating about 25 slots for seniors and letting them work off $500 or so a year.

His proposal faces some obstacles. If the wages earned are to be tax-free and directly credited to the property tax bill, the state Legislature would have to approve. In addition, unions would have to be convinced that the program is no threat to their members’ job security.

Feiner is hoping for at least a pilot program next year.

Eventually, he said, he would like to see the county and the local school districts adopt similar plans.