January 12, 2026
The Town of Franklin is reappraising all +2,200 properties for the 2026 assessment roll. This involves determining market value as of the July 1, 2025 valuation date.
We will be conducting a public information session on Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at 6:00 PM. This public session will be held at the conference room at 12480 County Highway 21, Franklin, NY 13775.
If you would like to review the presentation materials in advance, you may view a copy at Presentation2026_01_21.pdf
January 2, 2026
Two property tax exemptions were amended recently, which may impact some Town of Franklin Taxpayers:
Veterans with a 100% service connected disability
Senior Citizens with limited income
Because these amendments are so new, the text of the changes is reproduced below. Please be aware that both of these exemption amendments are LOCAL OPTION. This means that until the taxing jurisdiction (County, Town, School, Special District) adopts the change by local law (or resolution in the case of a school district), this change is not implemented.
I recommend you contact the Veterans Service Agency or the Office of the Aging. Of course, you might also wish to contact the governing board of any of the above referenced taxing districts regarding their plans to implement these changes.
- Veterans –
LAWS OF NEW YORK, 2025 CHAPTER 672 AN ACT to amend the real property tax law, in relation to establishing a real property tax exemption for veterans who have a one hundred percent service connected disability Became a law December 19, 2025, with the approval of the Governor. Passed by a majority vote, three-fifths being present. The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: Section 1. Section 458-a of the real property tax law is amended by adding a new subdivision 11 to read as follows: 11. A county, city, town, village or school district may adopt a local law or resolution to include the primary residence of any seriously disabled veteran who: (a)(i) was discharged or released therefrom under honorable condi- tions; (ii) has a qualifying condition, as defined in section one of the veterans' services law, and has received a discharge other than bad conduct or dishonorable from such service; or (iii) is a discharged LGBT veteran, as defined in section one of the veterans' services law, and has received a discharge other than bad conduct or dishonorable from such service; and (b) (i) is considered to be permanently and totally disabled as a result of military service; (ii) is rated one hundred percent disabled by the United States department of veterans affairs; (iii) has been rated by the United States department of veterans affairs as individually unemployable; and (iv) who is eligible for pecuniary assistance from the United States government, or has received pecuniary assistance from the United States government and has applied such assistance toward the acquisition or modification of a suitable housing unit with special features or movable facilities made necessary by the nature of the veterans' disability and the necessary law therefor shall be fully exempt from taxation and special district charges, assessments and special ad valorem levies, provided that such veteran meets all other requirements of this section. § 2. This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply to assess- ment rolls prepared on and after January 2, 2026. 2) Senior Citizens with limited IncomeSTATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 3698--A 2025-2026 Regular Sessions IN ASSEMBLY January 30, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. WEPRIN, WILLIAMS, ALVAREZ, PHEFFER AMATO -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. COLTON -- read once and referred to the Committee on Real Property Taxation -- committee discharged, bill amended, ordered reprinted as amended and recommitted to said commit- tee AN ACT to amend the real property tax law, in relation to providing an additional real property tax exemption for certain senior citizens The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Paragraph (b) of subdivision 1 of section 467 of the real 2 property tax law is amended by adding a new subparagraph 4 to read as 3 follows: 4 (4) Notwithstanding the maximum exemption percentage permitted pursu- 5 ant to paragraph (a) of this subdivision, any local law, ordinance or 6 resolution adopted pursuant to this section may be amended, or a local 7 law, ordinance or resolution may be adopted, to create additional annual 8 income categories and corresponding exemption percentages for households 9 making less than the maximum income eligibility level of such municipal 10 corporation as provided in this subdivision (represented in the herein- 11 below schedule as M) pursuant to the following schedule: 12 ANNUAL INCOME PERCENTAGE OF ASSESSED VALUATION 13 EXEMPT FROM TAXATION 14 Less than (M) but 15 more than (M- $1,000) 50% 16 Less than (M- $1,000) but 17 more than (M- $2,000) 55% A. 3698--A 2 1 Less than (M- $2,000) but 60% 2 more than (M- $3,000); and 3 Less than (M- $3,000) 65% 4 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply to taxable 5 years beginning on and after January 1, 2026.
September 23, 2025
Real Property System Online (Pronounced ‘RiPS-On’, possible antonym of rip-off)
Review from demo on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 Guilderland Town Hall. Bear in mind this review is based on a demonstration, not a hands-one use.
If you have used RPSV4 and have used any number of web apps, just picture merging the two together. During the demo, no deprecations from RPSV4 were noted. There also are very few enhancements. Future upgrades were mentioned often. From all appearances they want to roll this product out ASAP with all the basic functionality required. In the future, after consultation with users, more features may be added.
At this time, there is no ‘new’ fee to the users. That is to say, the current RPS licensing structure in place at this time will continue. It was clearly left open that this will be reviewed in the future.
The database engine is Oracle. The existing RPSV4 program is based on a Sybase database. Sybase was bought by SAP in 2010. All of these are SQL (Structured Query Language) relational (tables of columns and rows) database systems.
So, why the push to move from RPSV4 to RiPS-On? Two major reasons:
- RPSV4 is written in legacy languages such as Cobol and PowerBuilder. No mention was made at the demo regarding programming languages used in RiPS-On. The data stack of modern software engineers/programmers does not include these ‘old’ languages. DTF claims they cannot find personnel fluent in those old languages.
- RPSV4 is distributed over 1,000 assessing districts. Any upgrades, patches, etc. must be distributed to each site. As a web-app, RiPS-On can be updated as needed by the State. One update, done. Boom!
What is the impact? DTF will discontinue support for RPSV4 within the next couple of years. Ask yourself, “How often does my DBA contact DTF for assistance?” All of that assistance will be non-existent soon!
Key items not included in RiPS-On
Sketching – the Dev Team is currently working with Apex to provide any existing sketches you may have. Even if/when this happens, the user will not be able to make sketch changes in RiPS-On and have those edits saved to Apex.
Images – there is no provision to allow linking to any drives outside the state’s hardware. This means you cannot access your pictures – say, for example, you want to drop them into an appraisal report – without being on-line. In RPSV4, images and PDF documents are linked in an image table. Though no detail was provided, images and documents will be stored separately. IIRC, the limit is 20 pictures, and 50 documents.
Public dashboard – dashboards are all the rage currently in the business intelligence world. In fact, the new iteration of MuniPro is a dashboard. It allows the user to obtain details and drill down to the specific items he or she wants. There is no provision in RiPS-On for a dashboard of your choosing.
Enhancements noted during the demo
Owner designation – In RiPS-On there are three categories for owner types: Primary, Secondary, Additional. The advantage here is that you can force the second owner name on the assessment roll, instead of having to trick RPSV4, or renumbering the owners through a backdoor SQL script.
Sales ID column – In RiPS-On sales are stored by county swis code, book and page. In RPSV4 they are tied to the print_key (SBL). This is a huge improvement! Previously, sales could get ‘lost’ after a parcel was split or deleted.
Audit trail – though it wasn’t specifically demonstrated, the audit trail will now keep track of every change, by whom it was made, and when.
Batch maintenance – This seems to be referred to more as ‘Import’ in RiPS-On. Extracts and Imports are all is CSV (comma separated value) format, which is industry standard. Just as with RPSV4, assessments can be updated from a batch file, say, after a reassessment. But, if I heard correctly, exemptions can also be updated with a batch procedure. Again, if this is true, this also is a major enhancement. This will allow a user to keep one spreadsheet with all the exemptions for the upcoming roll. This allows Assessors to answer questions regarding StaR and other exemptions when the school taxes go out. Then, after we process any renewals, added or deleted exemptions, they could be batched on in one process.
Author’s Recommendations:
- Develop a local plan for data security.
With RiPS-On, your backup plan is an Ostrich Effect! RiPS-On keeps 6 years of assessment data. There are assessing districts that have 26 years of assessment data on RPSV4. Once you move to RiPS-On you will have lost that historical data. Do you really want to hand over the decision on purging your data to . . . anyone?!!With RiPS-On, connectivity is a must. Do you want to be left with no data and no ability to do your job when your network goes down? Who is more likely to be the subject of a Ransomware attack, a large State agency that holds Social Security numbers, bank routing and account numbers, other income information, or a small department in a small assessing district that doesn’t store sensitive information?
With RiPS-On, you are at the mercy of the State regarding custom reporting. Because you do not have table-level access to your data, you are limited to the data extracts that the State provides. Do you want to provide a custom dashboard for your analysis and/or for the public? This will not happen unless the data fields you need are part of an existing extract provided in RiPS-On.
Solution: Port your data to an alternate database provider. This might be a traditional RDBMS (MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, SQL Server Express, etc.) or one of the datalake providers (Databricks, SnowFlake, etc.)
- Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
We don’t have to worry about being the first. Conversions to RiPS-On are already in the pipeline. Hamilton County is set to be up and running RiPS-On on November 10, 2025. I recommend you also don’t be the last conversion.
July 1, 2025
The 2025 Final assessment roll has been published. You may view that roll at
May 23, 2025
Big changes are coming to property assessment administration software!
Back in 2001, NY Towns began implementing the change from an ASCII (test based) assessment database to a RDBMS (RPSV4), licensed by New York State. Despite some ‘growing-pains’ along the way, this was a vast improvement over RPSV3. Currently, that state-of-the art system is slated for deprecation late 2025.
The RPS Online system will be a cloud based application. For the foreseeable future we will continue to maintain on-prem data and software. This allows the Assessor to perform tasks and fulfill requests during times and at locations where internet connectivity is limited or non-existent.
May 5, 2025
Why does the ‘Full Market Value’ of my parcel keep going up each year?
In 1998, NYS Real Property Tax Law was amended to require at least two new data points on the assessment roll. 1) Uniform Percent, and 2) Full Market Value. Hard as it may seem to believe, prior to that time assessments could be at a percentage of value that was not declared by the Assessor. For example, prior to 1996, Franklin assessments had not been updated since 1974. By 1996 the prevailing level of assessment was in the mid 30%. But the Assessment roll did not indicate the percentage, nor the full value.
In 1998 we reappraised and placed assessments on the roll at 100%. From 1999 through and including 2005, we made adjustments annually to keep assessments at 100%. Therefore, even though the 1999-2005 assessment rolls printed the full market value, it was always the same as the assessed value.
From 2006 through 2020, we did not update assessments to reflect the market value as of each valuation date. Thus, when there was price appreciation occurring, the uniform percentage went down. And when the market retreated (Great Recession 2008-2010’ish) the uniform percent went back up. During those non-reappraisal years, the ’Full Market Value’ on the assessment roll was simply calculated by dividing the assessed value by the uniform percentage of value.
Bringing that forward to the 2021 reappraisal . . . that assessment roll had a valuation date of 7/1/2020. For the 2021 assessment roll, the full value of the parcel was the same as the assessed value, and the uniform percent was 100.
As price appreciation has continued since that 7/1/20 valuation date, the uniform percent has decreased. For 2025 that uniform percent is 67%. The historical percentages can be found at http://orps1.orpts.ny.gov/cfapps/MuniPro/muni_theme/muni/ratehistory.cfm?swis=123200&dom_sw=123200
It is important to remember that you pay taxes based on the assessed value, not the ‘Full Market Value’. And any property tax exemptions you may have are subtracted from the assessed value, not the ‘Full Market Value’.
While on the topic of reappraisal . . . The next quinquennial reappraisal is just around the corner for 2026. In March 2026 you will receive notification of the appraised market value as of the July 1, 2025 valuation date.
Sometimes taxpayers will ask the Assessor, “Isn’t it a bad time to reappraise, when prices are so high?” In theory, it should not matter. I say this because, if the most probable price (market value) is ‘high’ for your parcel, it probably is for most other Taxpayers also. Because the entire tax base increases, the tax rate decreases. Similarly, when the market is ‘low’ on the valuation date of any reappraisal, the tax base would decrease, raising the tax rate.
For more information on reassessments in general, please see information from the NYS Dept. Tax & Finance. https://www.tax.ny.gov/pit/property/learn/reassess.htm
Please watch this web site going forward, as the Assessor will post relevant updates regarding the 2026 reappraisal.
May 2, 2025
You may have recently received a letter from a ‘Tax Rep’ on Long Island, telling you that they will save you some property tax dollars in return for a fee. Though this letter was from ‘Aventine Properties’ there are numerous individuals offering this ‘tax savings for a fee’ scheme. Before you sign with them, please consider . . .
If you believe your assessment, divided by 0.67, is substantially higher than your property would have sold for on July 1, 2024, consider contacting the Assessor directly. Any adjustment that might be justified you would benefit 100% from, without having to hand over a portion of your savings to a Long Island firm.
Worst case scenario, if the Assessor cannot justify a reduction, you could still file for reduction with the Board of Assessment Review when they meet Wednesday, May 28th, 2025 beginning at 4PM. In both cases, you would retain 100% of any possible tax savings.
May 1, 2025
The 2025 Tentative assessment roll has been published. You may view that roll at
November 22, 2023
Recently, the NYS Dept. Tax & Finance released data regarding the STaR Credit amounts. These are compared to the STaR exemption amounts for the five school districts in Franklin, as follows:
| Town of | School district | Enhanced STAR credit | Enhanced STAR exemption savings | Difference | Basic STAR credit | Basic STAR exemption savings | Difference |
| Franklin | Delhi | $897.00 | $812.00 | $85.00 | $348.57 | $348.57 | $0.00 |
| Franklin | Franklin | $914.00 | $827.00 | $87.00 | $462.97 | $421.00 | $41.97 |
| Franklin | Sidney | $1,035.00 | $965.00 | $70.00 | $423.00 | $415.00 | $8.00 |
| Franklin | Walton | $857.00 | $776.00 | $81.00 | $368.00 | $357.00 | $11.00 |
| Franklin | Otego-Unadilla (Unatego) | $1,183.00 | $1,072.00 | $111.00 | $561.00 | $548.00 | $13.00 |
** Note ** there are no STaR exemptions in the Unatego School District in the Town of Franklin **
Based on this data, if you were to make your decision regarding switching to the STaR Credit (giving up your STaR exemption) exclusively on the dollar amount of savings, switching will give you ‘more bang for your buck’. There are other considerations, which each Taxpayer will need to take into consideration. More details may be obtained on the DTF website.
October 13, 2023
Real property taxes tend to be ‘regressive’. That is, higher income earners typically pay a lower percentage of their income to their property tax. And, inversely, lower income earners typically pay a higher percentage of their income to property taxes.
This regressivity can be exacerbated by regressive assessments. That is the situation where properties at higher market values are assessed at a lower percentage of market value than are properties with ‘typical’ market value. To mitigate any possible regressivity in assessments, town-wide reappraisals on a regular schedule are required.
For an example of what can happen when an assessing unit goes for an extended time between reappraisals, consider this presentation regarding the Town of Philipstown in Putnam County NY.
July 3, 2023
The 2023 Final assessment roll has been published and is available for inspection at 2023 Final assessment roll
May 1, 2023
The 2023 Tentative assessment roll has been published and is available for inspection at 2023 Tentative assessment roll
February 1, 2023
On December 23, 2022, NYS Real Property Tax law was amended to require each Town statewide to send notification to all residential property owners regarding the Senior Citizen tax exemption. The requirements to qualify are as follows:
- The property owner must be at least 65 years of age
- The property must be the primary residence of the owner.
- The owners’ income may not exceed the income limit set by each taxing district
For the purpose of calculating income for the Senior Citizens’ exemption, annual Social Security benefits must be included as income. Each taxing district sets the income limit for that district. Current limits established by taxing districts within the Town of Franklin are:
| District Name | Annual Income Limit |
| Delaware County | 27,700 |
| Town of Franklin | – |
| Delaware Academy | |
| Franklin Central School | 25,000 |
| Sidney Central School | 13,699 |
| Walton Central School | 8,700 |
| Unatego | 16,000 |
More information regarding the Senior Citizen exemption may be found at
Publication 1091, Senior Citizens Property Tax Exemption (9/22) (ny.gov)
An application for the Senior Citizens’ exemption can be downloaded at https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/current_forms/orpts/rp467_fill_in.pdf
Instructions are available at
https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/current_forms/orpts/rp467i.pdf
July 1, 2022
The 2022 Final assessment roll has been published and is available for inspection at current assessment roll..
June 3, 2022
The Town of Franklin has published a new official website at https://franklindelco-ny.gov/ As required by NYS Real Property Tax law the current assessment roll will be posted on that official Town website.
A copy of the current assessment roll and copies of historical assessment rolls will continue to be posted on the Town Assessor’s website.
May 2, 2022
The 2022 Tentative assessment roll has been published and is available for inspection at 2022 Tentative assessment roll
March 16, 2022
The NYS Dept. Tax & Finance has terminated the contract with Tyler Technologies for development the next generation of assessment administration software. The Tax Department is partnering with the New York State Office of Information Technology Services to develop the next Real Property System software in-house.
February 22, 2022
The NYS Dept. Tax & Finance has issued a stop work order to Tyler Technologies. Tyler has been developing the next generation of assessment administration software.
July 7, 2021
The Town of Franklin 2021 Final Assessment roll has been published. Pursuant to New York State Real Property Tax Law §1590, a copy can be viewed here.
April 30, 2021
The Town of Franklin 2021 tentative assessment roll has been published.
February 26, 2021
A FAQ regarding reappraisal was added to the Assessor documents on this site. It can be found at Reappraisal FAQ.
February 10, 2021
The best way to keep up with the ever-changing STaR Exemption program is to check the resources provided by the NYS Department of Taxation & Finance. Their main STaR Resources can be found here.
Beginning in 2016, no new STaR exemptions were available throughout New York State. The Dept. of Tax & Finance is transitioning to the STaR Credit program. Anyone receiving the STaR exemption may choose to voluntarily switch to the Credit program. DTF maintains a specific page with their opinions on why you might decide to switch.
The Assessor can not give you legal advice. Any tools found on this website are provided to help you be better informed so that you can make the best decision for your individual circumstances regarding whether to voluntarily switch to the STaR Credit. Though I have requested STaR Credit versus Exemption amounts from the Dept. of Tax and Finance, they have as of this writing refused to provide the amount of the Credit checks. The Dept. has indicated to me
‘Best we can say is that more than 75% of Enhanced STAR recipients and roughly half of Basic STAR recipients receive a larger benefit if they’re receiving the STAR credit.’
I have compiled below the two most recent year’s maximum exemption savings by School District:
| Maximum STaR Benefit for September School Tax bill (Town of Franklin) | ||||||||
| 2019 | 2020 | |||||||
| STaR Exemption | STaR Credit | STaR Exemption | STaR Credit | |||||
| School District | Basic | Enhanced | Basic | Enhanced | Basic | Enhanced | Basic | Enhanced |
| Delhi | $405 | $812 | $405 | $812 | ||||
| Franklin | $421 | $827 | $421 | $827 | ||||
| Otego-Unadilla | **see note** | **see note** | ||||||
| Sidney | $472 | $965 | $472 | $965 | ||||
| Walton | $357 | $776 | $357 | $776 | ||||
| Note: There were no STaR exemptions in Unatego School District on the 2015 Town of Franklin assessment roll. Thus, this exemption is no longer available. The STaR Credit would be the only option here for a primary resident. | ||||||||
| Also Note: The STaR Credit cannot be less than the Exemption, though it may increase by up to 2% annually. Because the State has yet to provide the STaR credit maximums for either year, the above data will not tell you definitively which benefit would have been greater in either year. | ||||||||
For specific questions you may have regarding the STaR program, please contact the Assessor’s Office.
January 13, 2021
At a special meeting – January 12, 2021 – the Franklin Town Board resolved in support of a 2021 reappraisal. This reaffirmed their prior commitment to maintain equitable assessments through regular, periodic reappraisals.
June 30, 2020
The 2020 Town of Franklin 2020 final assessment roll has been published. Pursuant to New York State Real Property Tax Law §1590, a copy can be viewed here.
June 21, 2020
By NYS Governor Executive Order 202.44, the Real Property Tax Law Article 5, is modified to allow the final assessment roll to be filed up to 30 days late;
This Executive Order also modified Real Property Tax Law § 1212, to allow the commissioner of Dept. of Tax and Finance to certify final state equalization rates, class ratios, and class equalization rates no later than 10 days before the last date sent by law.
On June 9, 2020 the Dept. of Tax & Finance issued their final equalization rate for the Town of Franklin at 87.50
June 1, 2020
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 the 2020 Town of Franklin tentative assessment roll was published to this website. Pursuant to Executive Order 202.22 there will be no provision for in-person examination of this assessment roll. Anyone having questions/concerns regarding this roll should contact the Assessor directly at (607) 230-0900 ext# 1 or AssessorFranklin@Gmail.com If you would like to video conference regarding the assessment roll, that will be arranged for you.
For 2020, the Board of Assessment Review (BAR) will meet by video conference on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 from 4 – 8 PM. Any Complainant that wishes to be heard that night must file an RP-524 for any parcel for which they believe themselves to be aggrieved. That form must be received at the Assessor’s Office on or before Thursday, May 21. As this is an open meeting, any member of the public may choose to attend the BAR video conference meeting.
Though the Assessor is generally avilable by telephone or email throughout the month of May, I will specifically be available through video conference at the following times:
Thursday, May 21 1 PM – 5 PM
Friday, May 22 4 PM – 8 PM
Saturday, May 23 10 AM – 2 PM
Tuesday, May 26 10 AM – 2 PM
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Tuesday, April 21, 2020
On Tuesday, April 21, the Franklin Town Board considered the State disaster emergency declaration regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, and its financial and emotional impacts on the community. After much consideration and out of deep concern for the well-being of Franklin Taxpayers, the Town Board unanimously resolved to postpone implementation of the current reappraisal until 2021.
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Monday, April 20, 2020
NYS Governor Cuomo directed in pertinent part as follows:
” . . . Article 5 of the Real Property Tax Law, and analogous provisions of any other general or special laws that require a tentative assessment roll to be filed on or before June 1, 2020, to allow the tentative and final assessment rolls to be filed, at local option, up to 30 days later than otherwise allowable, to allow an assessing unit to set a date for hearing assessment complaints that is at least 21 days after the filing of the tentative roll, to allow notice of the filing of the tentative roll to be published solely online so long as the date for hearing complaints is prominently displayed, to suspend in-person inspection of the tentative roll, and to allow local Boards of Assessment Review to hear complaints remotely by conference call or similar service, provided that complainants can present their complaints through such service and the public has the ability to view or listen to such proceeding; . . . “
Thus, the Town of Franklin tentative assessment roll will be filed on or before May 5, 2020. Notice of filing that roll will be posted on this website.
The Board of Assessment Review will meet Wednesday, May 27, 2020 from 4-8PM. That meeting will be via video conference. Anyone wishing to be heard that day must submit Form RP-524 on or before Thursday May 21, 2020. Upon receipt of any RP-524 by the Assessor, the Complainant will be provided with the details for attending the video conference Board of Assessment Review hearing.