http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opvec075490556dec07,0,7521618.story

 Newsday... Op-Ed

The state needs to pass a cap on school taxes

BY ANDREA VECCHIO | Andrea Vecchio, an activist with the watchdog group East Islip TaxPac, was the plaintiff in a case challenging a 1990 school bond vote.

December 7, 2007

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's budget director, Paul Francis, in Hauppauge last week for a town hall meeting, painted a fairly grim scenario: Significant state budget shortfalls are likely next year, with little increase, if any, in state school aid for Long Island.

Usually decreases in state aid get passed to homeowners, tacked on to their property taxes. But with the local economy reeling from the effects of the subprime mortgage credit crunch, this is no longer an option. Taxpayers need relief. We need a school property tax cap.

Until recently, Long Islanders feeling squeezed by the tax burden could sell their homes for a good price as they left for places like the Carolinas, Virginia or Tennessee. Buyers were willing to pay a premium for the desirable suburban lifestyle, despite high taxes.

But today houses are not selling like hotcakes any more, and suddenly school taxes matter. Affordable houses still will sell; others won't. And affordable houses are those with affordable taxes.

We have to limit school districts' ability to add to Long Island's already unaffordable school-tax burden. And it must be done at the state level.

Why? Taxpayers' ability to control spending at the district level come school budget time is extremely limited.

In my district, East Islip, for example, where more than 6,000 voters typically turn out to repeatedly vote down school budgets with big increases, property tax bills have shot up by 47 percent in five years, according to calculations by East Islip TaxPac.

Last year, citizens voted "no" twice. But with the district on an austerity budget and an expired teachers' contract, taxes still went up over 12 percent on my bill. An austerity budget doesn't mean that taxes will go down, or even hold steady.

Whatever spending caps we have for districts on austerity do not work.

A tax cap bill has been proposed by Assemb. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-St. James). This would limit increases to the rate of inflation or 4 percent - whichever is lower. That should control the growth in school spending.

Because New York State is constitutionally responsible "for educating every child of the state," the state still would be required to provide additional support to needy districts.

This could come from other state revenue such as the lottery or sales tax. And so could any other spending on schools that the state would like to add.

The tax cap in Fitzpatrick's bill is the same one that originally was in legislation that created the STAR programs that were intended to provide reductions on property tax assessments. The cap was removed before the bill was passed in 1997.

In Fitzpatrick's bill, voters could override the property tax cap through a two-thirds vote.

Both Massachusetts and New Jersey have adopted similar caps, and they've been working. Back in 1980, "Taxachusetts" and New York were ranked first and second in the United States for levying the highest tax burden on their residents.

After enacting a tax cap that year, Massachusetts ranks 28th in taxation.

Every Long Islander has a stake in the schools' continuing success in turning out well-educated young people. But we also would like more of our graduates to live here as adults. The tax cap would make it more likely that they'll be able to afford to do that. Albany needs to put this real reform in place.