Watchdog report: What should colleges contribute for services?

For Henrietta firefighters, calls to Rochester Institute of Technology are nothing out of the ordinary: 13 percent of the fire district’s calls last year came from the campus — 473 in total. But even though RIT owns about $380 million of property in the district, the college contributed only $35,000 to Henrietta Fire District’s 2011 budget — less than one percent of the $6.8 million total. That’s because most of RIT’s property, like almost all real estate owned by colleges and universities in the Rochester area, is tax exempt. A Democrat and Chronicle review of such exemptions for local colleges found that, while the New York Constitution and state law entitle institutions of higher learning to be exempt from property tax, the value of property off the tax rolls in the area is considerable and can be a source of conflict between colleges and the communities.

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