FALLSBURG — Taxpayers in the Town of Fallsburg will have a new address to send their property tax payments to as the county has agreed to handle the 2023 tax payments.

Sullivan County Treasurer Nancy Buck said this is a significant undertaking for the county to handle the tax collection for a town.

“I don’t want to minimize what a huge undertaking this is,” said Buck, due to how the taxes were collected previously.

The town collected taxes at Fallsburg Town Hall, and payments could also be made directly to the bank.

According to Buck, the county’s system that is used for tax collection does not work with the banks anymore, which means the treasurer’s office will collect 100 percent of all the payments as opposed to roughly five percent of the payments that were received in Fallsburg directly with the rest being handled by the bank or county treasurer’s office in the past.

Buck said the town of Fallsburg approached the county treasurer’s office to see if they could help handle the taxes since the previous tax collector for Fallsburg retired.

Fallsburg Town Supervisor, Katherine Rappaport said, “The plan is to have an elected receiver of taxes for 2024.”

The county has handled tax collection for a town before. In January 2020, the county collected the property taxes for the Town of Bethel after its tax collector resigned abruptly.

Buck said the county is not doing this for free and will charge the Town of Fallsburg $1.50 per parcel and, according to Buck, the town has over 10,000 parcels.

District 8 Legislator Ira Steingart wanted to be sure of the expense of handling the property taxes for the Town of Fallsburg during the September 1, 2022, Planning, Real Property, and Economic Development Committee meeting. Buck said during that meeting that the expense would be her office’s time, which is already budgeted.

County Manager Josh Potosek adds that the Town of Fallsburg consented to cover additional costs like postage and copy in the agreement.

Buck said the official start date for this agreement will be January 1, 2023, but the treasure’s office is already working with the vendor to make sure the tax bills are printed. Until then, the Town of Fallsburg will need to make sure the information that is received on the tax roll is corrected, according to Buck.

Buck told the County Legislators that she believes the property taxes in the county should be centralized to the county treasurer and was wondering if this could be the first step for it.