By JAIME STUDD

For the Express

PERTH — Last fall, Perth town officials drafted a 2012 budget that set the tax levy at $564,759, which was approximately $25,000 above last year’s but well within the state’s newly imposed 2 percent tax cap—or so they thought.

In a statement released last week by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, Perth is listed among the 43 towns that state auditors have identified as having exceeded the tax cap without having first enacted a local law to do so.

More than 200 auditors, dispatched by DiNapoli, recently visited a randomly selected 798 municipalities in an effort to ensure local understanding of and compliance with the new tax cap law.

“My auditors will be visiting the municipalities that exceeded their tax cap improperly to make sure they have taken corrective action and reduced their tax bills, or put any excess property tax revenue into a reserve as required by the law,” DiNapoli said.

Perth town Supervisor Greg Fagan said he was told the violation of the tax cap occurred when he inadvertently miscalculated an exemption based on the town’s contributions to the retirement system, but he does not necessarily agree with the evaluation.

“They showed me the way they figured it, and I don’t know that I agree with it, but they say that they’re right and I’m wrong,” said Fagan. “So, we went over.

“For some reason, they calculated the exempt portion based on our increase in gross payroll, where I was going by what I thought they were instructing us to use, which was the increase in our contribution,” he said. “Actually, our contribution to the retirement system went up considerably more than our increase in gross payroll, so their number was much smaller than mine.”

The miscalculation equates to approximately $16,000, said Fagan.

Municipalities that were found to be non-compliant with the tax cap were given the opportunity to adjust their respective tax bills accordingly prior to printing.

According to the statement, ten municipalities were able to correct their tax bills after working with auditors, saving their tax payers more than $280,000.

Under the law, those who were unable to make the appropriate corrections in time were allowed to place the excess  received beyond the tax cap limit into a reserve to offset the taxes levied in the following year.

Because Perth’s tax bills had already been issued, Fagan said the latter would be done.

“I got the town attorney looking into it, but apparently we’re supposed to take the amount that we went over out of fund balance and put it into some kind of reserve,” said Fagan. “For what, I don’t know because if it’s in fund balance, it’s already not being spent.

“The bottom line is, I think, whether there was a tax cap or not, we would’ve probably ended up at that same rate either way,” he added.

According to DiNapoli’s release, the property , combined, for the 5 percent of the municipalities who illegally exceeded the cap would have risen by a half million dollars more then would have been allowed under the cap.

DiNapoli said his auditor’s review of the selected municipalities was not as much a matter of oversight and accountability as it was an effort to help municipalities negotiate the intricacies of the new law.

“Our review assisted local governments by providing insight into common issues and errors calculating the new cap, and I have directed by staff to develop additional training and expand our outreach to eliminate these errors.”

Fagan said the rules and regulations surrounding the tax cap, and its calculation procedures were complicated and confusing.

“There’s no official guidelines,” he said, adding that they were “things that just continue to add to the frustration of local government.”