A church in Moravia was surprised to receive a tax bill in September on its vacant parsonage.

Assessed at $140,000, it was put back on the tax roll after the assessor determined there was a change in the organization's tax-exempt status with the parsonage being vacant for about a year and a half.

Doug Weed, New Hope Mills Bible Fellowship member and son of its former pastor, questioned the tax bill at the Moravia Town Board last month.

“We're a church,” he said. “We don't get tax bills.”

The church, located at 2362 Oak Hill Road, has about 15 parishioners now, Weed said. It once had as many as 50.

The town board granted the fellowship an exemption that night, but it was subject to filling out required forms and submitting them to the town. The church has raised concerns about the information it is being told to provide.

“These are forms required by law,” Town Supervisor Gary Hatfield said.

Weed said he is submitting a shorter renewal form to town attorney Richard Zwirn, rather than the 19-page long form required by the assessor. He was assured by New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a religious lobbying organization in Albany, that was all the church had to do, he said.

Town assessor Linda Wright said church representatives were still looking for a pastor in September 2008 and March 2009. She sent a letter asking church officials to document that they were pursuing a pastor. Because there had been a change, she said, she asked for a longer organizational purpose form requiring detailed responses to document that they were still a religious organization.

But the church's representatives balked at doing this. The assessor received the long form without a signature and missing information, including financial data.

Jeff Lowe, state Office of Real Property Services customer relationship manager, said anyone seeking an exemption has to submit a long form. The short form is only a renewal application, which doesn't cover some things required on the long form.

“It's the assessor who is the trier of fact,” Lowe said. “If there is no application, it's a null point.”

Weed said it is a separation of church and state issue for a state or local government to require financial information of a religious nonprofit. His church has functioned since 1991 with tax-exempt status, he said, indicating other area churches didn't have to file similar paperwork. The church has a tax-exempt number.

“It seems personal,” Weed said. “Somebody's driving the issue. We're not the first church to go without a pastor.”

However, he was satisfied with the town board's reaction last month. Whether the board will accept the short-form as adequate for providing the tax exemption is unclear.

“Do what you want to do and we'll do what we have to do,” Hatfield told Weed at last month's meeting, asking for the forms by the town's Nov. 18 meeting.

Former Pastor Dale Weed moved to another area in April 2008, leaving the parsonage vacant. An interim pastor traveling back and forth from Virginia began this month without living in the parsonage. The church board will decide in December whether or not to keep him full time, church treasurer Dorothy Hill said.

The congregation is preparing the building for occupancy, replacing appliances and doing general repairs, she said.

Wright, the assessor, said the tax-exempt issue came to light while she was out doing data collection. A Moravia taxpayer asked her why the parsonage was tax exempt when no person lived there. The building is an impressive two-story frame house with a nearby swimming pool and pole barn.

Wright said she immediately called Weed and learned that the parish was actively looking for a new pastor. Wright went to the site and inspected it and felt there were enough questions to require paperwork be submitted.

If the parsonage is vacant and not being used, it's questionable whether it's tax exempt at all, she said. Real property tax law says if it's not occupied it can be removed from tax exempt status.

The assessor said she prepared paperwork to once again take the parsonage off the tax rolls as soon as she got a completed application from the church.

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net