By JUDY RATTNER and ANTHONY BOTTAN
I think it could adversely affect the district, said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Santo Barbarino. It ties the hands of the district. We have elections every year where the community has the opportunity to accept or reject the budget. [A tax cap] basically takes away the rights of the community to decide what the students of the district need for education.
Vicki Alspector, a school board trustee in East Rockaway, agreed with Barbarino. It-s pandering, Alspector said. It-s an artificial way to control costs and it-s not going to work. I-m a taxpayer without kids in the school, but I don-t want the schools to fall apart. I-m a big believer in schools.
In a special session on Aug. 8, the Senate passed legislation that supporters say will reduce costs for schools and ensure adequate resources for students. In an unusual show of bipartisanship, the Republican-led Senate approved the bill, which was drafted by Democratic Gov. David Paterson and recommended by a special property tax relief commission led by Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, also a Democrat, by a vote of 38-20, with several Democratic legislators joining Republicans in supporting the measure.
Despite its popularity on both sides of the aisle, however, there are questions about how the bill will fare in the Democratic-led Assembly, and it has been opposed by labor unions, including powerful teachers- unions.
Enacting a property tax cap is a good starting point, but it is only one piece of the puzzle, said Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos in a written statement. We also passed measures to provide help for school districts who are dealing with rising costs that force property taxes to increase including rising pension and energy costs. New Yorkers are facing challenging economic times. The measures we passed ... in our special session will provide much-needed relief to taxpayers and is the beginning of the process of reducing property taxes.
The legislation would limit yearly tax levy increases to 4 percent, or 120 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower, unless at least 55 percent of voters in a district approve higher spending. In districts that receive an increase in state aid of more than 5 percent, 60 percent of voters would need to approve a budget increase of more than 4 percent.
The measure would also enable voters to approve stricter tax caps in their school districts. An under-ride proposal could be put on the ballot by voters who wish to adopt a tax increase that is smaller than the cap, or no tax increase at all. School districts that approve an increase of less than 4 percent would be authorized to bank the difference up to 1.5 percent for tax increases in future years.
If the bill is signed into law, its effects would not be felt until late next year, and it would not reduce current property taxes, but rather limit new increases.
Senators also passed a bill containing several additional savings proposals and offering relief from the unfunded mandates school districts often point to as a drain on resources. The omnibus legislation in-cludes provisions intended to provide relief from increasing pension costs, increased aid for construction of green schools and energy conservation, incentives for school districts to consolidate services, school superintendent sharing in small districts, a ban on unfunded mandates and a two-year moratorium on property reassessments.
The Senate also approved a resolution calling on the federal government to provide financing for its unfunded programs, including the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires school districts to meet costly testing and reporting requirements.
Barbarino further explained his doubts about capping property taxes. The immediate response to restrictions on budgets would be to curtail educational opportunities, and that means looking at [cutting] programs that are so important to student development, he said. The state government has no problem telling schools that there is a limit on how they can raise money for the education of students. When are they going to step forward and tell energy institutions that there is a limit on what they charge the citizens of New York state?
Long Island schools send more money upstate than they get back, the superintendent continued. What I-m looking for is for them to come to grips with this tax cap concept and realize it will not help schools districts, and that it will eventually hurt the students.
But Jack Talty, a Rockville Centre resident who is active in a group called Taxpayers for Responsible School Spending (TRSS), echoed what appeared to be a more popular view. The cap is supported by the governor and by 74 percent of New Yorkers, according to a Siena College survey I read, Talty said. And it passed with the support of several Democrats in the Senate. The feeling is it will be defeated in the Assembly because the teachers- unions are very much opposed to it. I think this is tragic because our property taxes are 79 percent higher than the national average. And the cap would not affect the people in the big cities. We-re in a situation where we have a runaway school tax that no one has been able to control, and it-s forcing people to leave Long Island.
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