RSS 2.0 FeedJuly 1, 2011, Featured Articles, Freeport-Baldwin Leader
State legislators hail new property tax cap
School officials express concerns.
The state’s new property tax cap was hailed by state Senator Charles Fuschillo Jr. and state Assemblyman David McDonough, but blasted by local school officials.
“Long Islanders can’t afford to keep paying some of the highest property taxes in the country. Families and businesses are leaving Long Island in droves because of our region’s crippling and unaffordable property tax burden,” said Senator Fuschillo, Republican of Merrick.
“Capping spending and controlling taxes are major steps in the right direction which will make Long Island more affordable and make it easier for people who live here to be able to stay here,” he added.
“I strongly support a property tax cap and have been leading the fight for one since I took office,” remarked Assemblyman Mcdonough, Republican of North merrick. he added that high taxes are killing New York’s economic recovery, and forcing thousand of homeowners to leave the state.
The property tax cap law will cap spending for school districts and local governments. Under the property tax cap, all local tax levy increases will be capped at either 2% or the annual increase in the consumer price index, whichever is less.
Voters will still have the opportunity to vote for their school district’s tax levy proposal in May. Districts cannot go above the cap unless they receive the approval of 60% of the voters in the budget vote.
To help school districts and localities further reduce costs, the law includes a number of mandate relief measures which are expected to save up to $127 million annually. The law also creates a Mandate Relief Council, which will examine and determine if a statute or regulation is costly, unsound, or unduly burdensome, and establish procedures for repealing unfunded mandates.
Long Island has among the highest property tax burdens in the state or the country, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit educational foundation. Nassau County’s property tax burden is the highest in the state and second highest in the country. Surveys have repeatedly shown that New Yorkers overwhelmingly support a property tax cap.
Not everyone persuaded
Freeport Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kishore Kuncham described the passage of the cap as “truly a sad day for public education. It’s a short-sighted, Band-Aid solution for a deeper, long-term problem that must be addressed.”
Noting that Freeport did not receive promised funding under Foundation Aid and the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, Dr. Kuncham insisted that “policymakers must make sure promises are kept.”
The Freeport school district has lost $15 million in aid over that last two years, and Dr. Kuncham felt that exclusion should have been allowed for state aid loss. As it is, Dr. Kuncham felt as Freeport was “getting hit from both sides” because of the tax cap.
Jay Breakstone, president of the North Bellmore School District’s Board of Education and president of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, told The Leader that the tax cap was only a “symptomatic solution” to a years-old problem. “If we had a better econmy. we would’nt be having a discussion about a tax cap,” he said. “High taxes are far more complex than to be addressed by a tax cap,” he continued. The cap, he said, is an easy solution to a difficult question.
Arnold Goldstein, superintendent of the North Bellmore School District, also told The Leader of his concern about the property tax cap. There is a quality of education offered on Long Island that a family won’t find everywhere,” he said, “and that quality is now in jeopardy.”
He says that school districts have in fact been tightening up their budgets over the last several years without an impact on education, but the new tax caps will likely require layoffs of teachers, increases in class sizes and, perhaps, cuts to programs.
He added that a minority would now be able to rule on issues of taxation, referring to the 60% vote requirement by a community to push through new taxes. “If under 41% opposed new taxes, they win,” he said. “I’m concerned about that.”
