ALBANY — An audit of property tax exemptions in the Empire State found that most were not properly documented, causing other taxpayers to bear an outsized tax burden, according to an audit by the Office of the New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

The comptroller’s office said it audited 10 towns in upstate New York to see how they were handling property tax exemptions for agricultural uses, senior citizens, and veterans. The towns of Callicoon, Carlisle, Chenango, Cherry Valley, Coventry, Davenport, Green, Lisle, Meredith, and Springfield were audited for 2016.

The towns were selected, the comptroller’s report said, because they had a higher percentage of the three exemptions than other towns in their counties.

Of the 1,509 exemptions reviewed, 901, or 60 percent, were somehow in error. Fully 51 percent lacked one or more documents supporting the exemption.

The audit found a variety of errors were made.

Most agricultural and senior-citizen exemptions are supposed to be renewed annually. But the audit found 71 cases where the property owner did not even ask for a renewal and the exemption was renewed automatically.

Veterans’ exemptions don’t require annual renewals. However, the audit noted that towns should still periodically check to ensure a property is still the veteran’s primary residence. The audit found the average time since the original granting of a veteran’s exemption was more than 14 years.

Not all oversights benefited the taxpayers involved. The audit found 15 veterans received exemptions worth less than they should have been granted even as 41 received veterans’ exemptions greater than they should have received.

Many towns have seen turnover in assessors, the audit report said, all of whom are supposed to verify their tax rolls are accurate. It noted that a new assessor in Carlisle (Schoharie County) completed such a verification by requesting that all property owners receiving veterans’ exemptions submit proof of eligibility. That resulted in eight properties losing their exemptions.

In all, the audit found 901 exemptions that should not have been granted. Those exemptions had a taxable value of $25 million, nearly one-tenth of the total exemptions granted and, according to the audit report, more than 5 percent of the total taxable assessed value in the 10 towns audited.

“Every exemption shifts the tax burden to the non-exempt properties,” the audit report said. 

Town governments were notified of the audit results. However, the comptroller’s office has no enforcement power, so it is up to each municipality to decide whether to fix the problem and how.

The comptroller’s office said it has offered assessors in-person and online training opportunities to address the shortcomings found in the audit.

Several towns responded to the audits, saying they were taking steps to fix things. In its response, Carlisle noted that it is important the tax levy be accurate. “Since the audit was only done in 10 towns the numbers would be staggering if all 932 towns were looked at….”

A spokesman for the comptroller’s office said the audit, which focused on rural communities in the area between Binghamton and Schenectady, could be repeated in other regions. However, he said no such audit had yet been scheduled.       

SYRACUSE — The Syracuse University community is remembering the man for whom the institution’s School of Management is named.

Martin J. Whitman died April 16 at the age of 93.

In a news release, Syracuse described Whitman as “an investment industry visionary and generous benefactor to Syracuse University and its management school that bears his name.”

Whitman, who graduated from Syracuse in 1949 and earned an honorary degree in 2008, was an honorary trustee at the time of his death, the university said.

In 2003, “through the generosity” of Whitman and his wife, Lois, Syracuse named its business school the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. The donation resulted in construction of a 160,000-square-foot, “state-of-the-art” building for students to pursue their management-school degrees. 

“Marty Whitman represented the very best of a generation that believed in hard work, education and striving for excellence always,” Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud said. “He used his education and his extraordinary intellect to achieve the highest levels of success, and yet he never forgot his humble roots. He was a role model for thousands of students here at Syracuse and elsewhere, and his legacy will live on through them.”

About Whitman

The son of Polish immigrants, Whitman was a fixture of the Syracuse University community for more than 70 years. 

He came to Syracuse on the G.I. Bill after serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II and went on “to climb the highest echelons of the fiercely competitive field of investment management.” 

In the process, he developed a reputation among his peers in the industry as the “dean of value investing.” 

Graduating in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Whitman began his career as a security analyst at Shearson Hammill and went on to work in research and corporate finance for several firms. He earned a master’s degree in economics from the New School for Social Research in New York City and in 1974 founded his own firm, M.J. Whitman & Co. Inc., a broker-dealer.

Ten years after opening his own firm, he participated in a takeover of Equity Strategies, an open-end investment company, where he became CEO and president. In 1990, Whitman founded Third Avenue Value Fund, managing it from its inception through 2012 and serving as its chief investment officer through January 2010. He also shared his insights and investment savvy as author or co-author of four books.

Elected to Syracuse University’s board of trustees in 2003, Whitman “frequently” taught classes and led seminars as an adjunct faculty member at the Whitman School. He also taught at Columbia University and at the Yale School of Management. 

He last visited the Syracuse campus April 6 to celebrate the 15th annual Whitman Day, Syracuse said.

“Mr. Whitman epitomized everything that the Whitman School of Management stands for,” Gene Anderson, dean of the Whitman School, said in the release. “His entrepreneurial, insightful and innovative spirit is reflective of our faculty, staff, students and alumni who follow his example in all they do. We are grateful for his many generous contributions of time, talent and treasure. He will be deeply missed by everyone in our community.”                        

CLAY — Oswego–based Pathfinder Bancorp (NASDAQ: PBHC), parent of Pathfinder Bank, has been generating much of its recent growth in Onondaga County and is continuing full steam ahead with its expansion there.

Pathfinder Bank recently announced it will be opening a new branch in Clay this fall, making it its third Onondaga County office.

The bank has purchased the building at 3775 State Route 31 in Clay, which used to be home to a KeyBank branch. 

Pathfinder Bank bought the property for $625,000 from KeyBank and plans to spend at least another $625,000 to upgrade the appearance of the branch, including enhancing the drive-thru lanes and improving access to the site, Tom Schneider, president and CEO of Pathfinder Bank and Pathfinder Bancorp, tells CNYBJ.

The nearly 2,500-square-foot building, situated on 2.4 acres, was valued at more than $431,000 in 2017, according to the Onondaga County Office of Real Property Services’ online records. JF Real Estate listed the property for sale. 

Pathfinder Bank is planning to open the branch in October, after interior renovations wrap up. Pathfinder hasn’t hired a general contractor for the project yet, but Rowlee Construction Inc. of Fulton is handling the initial demolition work, Schneider says.

The new office will be a full-service branch, offering retail, residential mortgage, commercial lending, and wealth-management services, as well as bank teller and ATM drive-thru service. 

Pathfinder Bank plans to hire six new employees, which would increase its companywide total to 160 employees.

Schneider says Pathfinder needs the branch to support its rapid growth and increase its points of contact with customers for their convenience.

“What we found with the unprecedented growth we generated last year, [nearly 20 percent], our ability to service our customers is impeded by lack of convenience,” he says.

Pathfinder Bank’s newest location will sit alongside the proposed Widewaters Commons project located at 3715 Route 31. Widewaters Commons — a project of DeWitt–based real-estate development and management company Widewaters Group — is about halfway through the planning-board approval process, according to Pathfinder. The proposal calls for a 100,000-square-foot-plus retail complex with restaurants and stores. 

That made the site attractive to Pathfinder as well as the fact it was a former bank branch that could be converted quickly, says Schneider. Also, the location allows the bank to serve customers from Clay, Radisson, and Baldwinsville.

The CEO says Pathfinder found out about the property from a customer and also from John Funiciello, president of JF Real Estate, who serves on the Pathfinder Bancorp board of directors.

Pathfinder’s other two Onondaga County branches are in Cicero and downtown Syracuse, respectively. The bank opened the Syracuse branch in September 2014 as a limited-service business banking office and then expanded it to a full-service retail branch in early 2017. 

Schneider says that 90 percent of Pathfinder’s growth is coming from the Onondaga County market. As a result, still more expansion is on the way. He says the bank plans to open two more branches in the city of Syracuse within the next 24 months.

Pathfinder Bancorp reported net income of $3.5 million, or 86 cents a share, in 2017, up from $3 million, or 74 cents, in 2016. 

The banking company’s total assets surged nearly 18 percent in 2017 to finish the year at $881.3 million. The increase was primarily driven by loan growth, led the bank’s increased penetration of the Syracuse market and surrounding Onondaga County areas.

Pathfinder Bank has nine branches, with six in Oswego County in addition to the current three in Onondaga County. It has a 42 percent share of total market deposits in Oswego County, per FDIC data. 

UTICA — Utica Police on April 10 arrested a Whitesboro man, charging him with robbing the GPO Federal Credit Union.

Joshua M. Smith, 38, was arrested a day after police said he entered the credit union located on Genesee Street in Utica shortly before 5 p.m., approached a teller, and handed her a note demanding money.

Police said the teller turned over an undisclosed amount of money and Smith fled the credit union. 

Smith is charged with robbery in the third degree, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Police said they believe Smith had entered Adirondack Bank’s Genesee Street, South Utica location prior to robbing the GPO Federal Credit Union. There, they said, “Smith engaged employees in conversation but left the bank without incident.”

Following the robbery, police shared several surveillance photos of a bearded man in a dark coat, dark glasses and a Yankees cap and said they wanted to speak with him. “At this time the male is not a suspect, only an individual we would like to speak to relative to the investigation,” police said at the time.

In his arrest photo, Smith is clean shaven on his face and head.

Utica Police said that the surveillance photo and arrest photo are of the same man.

ELMIRA — Chemung Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: CHMG) reported net income of $4.4 million, or 92 cents a share, in the first quarter, up 49 percent from $3 million, or 62 cents, in the year-ago period.

Chemung Financial, parent company of Chemung Canal Trust Company, had a “great start” to 2018 with “strong” growth in year-over-year net income, which its commercial and indirect loan portfolios and improving margins continue to drive, according to Anders Tomson, CEO of Chemung Financial.

The banking company’s strong profit rise was led by a 13 percent increase in non-interest income, a 10 percent rise in net interest income, and a drop in NBT’s effective tax rate from 30 percent to 19.3 percent, following passage of the federal tax-cut bill.

In the earnings report, Tomson discussed Chemung Financial’s outlook.

“Due to the seasonality of our commercial and indirect consumer portfolios, we expect to see stronger growth in our loan portfolios during the next two quarters. We remain optimistic about the strength of the economy, however, the environment for deposits and commercial loans remains intensely competitive. We continue to assess our environment to meet the expectations of our clients, while tightly managing our cost of interest-bearing liabilities,” 

Elmira–based Chemung Financial is a $1.7 billion financial-services holding company. It operates 34 branches through its Chemung Canal Trust unit. Founded in 1833, Chemung Canal Trust says it is the “oldest” locally-owned and managed community bank in New York. Chemung Financial is also parent of CFS Group, Inc., a financial-services subsidiary offering non-traditional services including mutual funds, annuities, brokerage services, tax preparation services and insurance, and Chemung Risk Management, Inc., an insurance agency based in Nevada.   

New York Credit Union Association President/CEO William J. Mellin had a different opinion than the judge or the ABA. “The New York Credit Union Association disagrees with the court’s ruling that NCUA overstepped its authority when it modernized its field of membership rules. NCUA correctly and accurately understood that their field of membership rules needed to be updated to reflect the changing nature of financial services,” he said.

Mellin urged the NCUA to push hard to maintain its power to make rules for credit unions. “Going forward, we urge NCUA to continue to pursue every effort to uphold its rulemaking authority, and the association will explore all of our options for assisting the agency, credit unions and their members.”

In contrast, the ABA said the judge’s ruling “affirms what we have known for years — NCUA won’t hesitate to push the boundaries of reason for the credit-union industry even at the expense of taxpayers, small banks and the communities those banks serve.”

The American Bankers Association represents small, regional, and large banks that together employ more than 2 million people, hold $13 trillion in deposits, and extend nearly $10 trillion in loans.

The New York Credit Union Association is the trade association for the state’s credit unions, which collectively hold more than $76 billion in assets and serve 5.6 million members. 

NCUA is the independent federal agency created by Congress to charter, regulate, and supervise federal credit unions.