I am truly all for paying school taxes. Really! I am all for having a great school in our community. Actually, a great successful school district, is essential in the real estate market. The better the school, the better value on property in that district. But don't ask me to pay an increase in my school taxes because the teachers want a raise. Like it is an entitlement. Actually, I am tired of paying taxes that I get no benefits from at all. All of my tax dollars seem to be going to welfare recipients and public or political employees. Welcome to NYS

Quoted Text

The Little-Galef bill would connect property and income taxes, providing more property tax relief to those earning lower incomes.

The enactment of a progressive school tax based on income will lead to the accelerated departure of those in the middle and upper income brackets from New York State.  The result will be a state in which the majority of residents receive public assistance, with no tax base to support the programs.

It is thinking like this that has brought us to where we are today.  Increased spending and higher taxes have not fostered business development.  Our elected representatives must decrease spending, eliminate waste and fraud in government sponsored programs, and lower income and property taxes.  Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino is the lone voice of reason and fiscal conservatism.

Those who advocate "taxing the rich" must consider that a rich man is one who has a dollar more than you.  

There are a few proposals for cost cutting that were reported in the news story that have merit.  Included in these is the consolidation of school systems.  Merging several districts that are within close proximity would reduce the cost of administration and provide economies of scale in purchasing agreements.
  

Quoted Text

The enactment of a progressive school tax based on income will lead to the accelerated departure of those in the middle and upper income brackets from New York State.  The result will be a state in which the majority of residents receive public assistance, with no tax base to support the programs.

To late---as for the tax based on income, that is what the NYS Lotto is----the 'tax' on the poor....those who dont own homes and dont pay alot in taxes(if any at all) and just like the rest of us when in the same situation,,,will piss away $10 on scratch-offs or lotto numbers instead of purchasing paper and pencils for the kids at school.......

same with the folks who can actually afford to pay out of their pocket for their medications, but just refuse to because someone else is paying less than them.....we have issues.....greed, lust, envy and the biggest of all is ignorance.......

A rich man is one who has $1 more than you and

A lazylucky man is one who recieved $1 more from the government than you

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

Union opposition may derail tax cap
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

    A special commission created to find a way to cap New Yorkers’ property taxes may not call for a cap after all.
    The powerful New York State United Teachers union opposes the cap that would limit how much most school districts could raise through the local tax levy.
    “A tax cap makes no sense if we are serious about our efforts to maintain a high-quality education system and close the achievement gap” between poor and wealthier districts, said Richard C. Iannuzzi, NYSUT’s president. “Tax caps do nothing to impact the rising costs facing school districts.”
    Instead, NYSUT and other lobbyists representing school boards and school administrators support a “circuit breaker.” That would provide a state subsidy to cap taxes, but only for homeowners determined to be of moderate income.
    The state subsidy could cost the state more than $1.5 billion a year.
    Who receives the benefit would be defined by income, house value and the region of the state. It wouldn’t cap taxes for businesses, landlords or directly affect tenants, unless provisions are added before the May 22 final report is issued to the governor and Legislature.
    Gov. David Paterson is making a priority of reducing the state’s local property taxes, which are among the nation’s highest and blamed for an exodus of people and employers. He notes that the state’s STAR tax subsidy program now provides $5 billion a year in state funds to school districts, which are supposed to use it to offset the burden on taxpayers.
    But Paterson notes local school taxes have still gone up an average of 7 percent for five straight years despite increases in STAR and historic increases in traditional state school aid.
    “Everybody — everybody — agrees property taxes are a problem, so that’s a big plus,” said Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, who heads the commission and must build a consensus. “A second plus is that the governor has made this a statewide issue. I’ve been trying to push that rock up the hill for years.”
    Suozzi, a Democrat, said the state needs a “circuit breaker” that kicks in a tax break on the most hardpressed New Yorkers, but New Yorkers also need a cap on local tax levies. That could limit the amount of money a school district could raise in taxes to a fixed amount, such as 4 percent or 120 percent of the consumer price index, whichever is lower.
    District residents, however, could also choose to suspend the limit in an annual vote.
    “If you were to do a circuit breaker without a property tax cap, there would be less incentive for school districts to control their spending because the burden would be shifted to the state,” Suozzi said.

The state caves in again to the teachers union and the residents and businesses will continue to leave NYS, the teachers can still gouge the school districts and NYS can go bankrupt in the process.

The unions and all public sector jobs are in part what is killing this state. That is why our area isn't effected by the mass layoffs that other states are experiencing with this so called recession we are in. Most other states are primarily private sector. But not NYS!!

THERE ARE NO PREVAILING WAGES AND JOB STABILITY---JUST PREVAILING TAXES AND UNJUST SCALES................

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

CAPITOL
Panel backs property tax cap Commission: Yearly increases should not exceed 4 percent
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

    A special commission on Monday recommended that New Yorkers’ property taxes be capped at 4 percent a year, among other reforms.
    If the Commission on Property Tax Relief’s recommendations are accepted by Gov. David Paterson and the Legislature, local school taxes could be capped at either 4 percent or 120 percent of inflation, whichever is less. That would be about half of the annual, average growth in most recent years.
    A school district could exceed the cap if 55 percent of voters agree. But if the district received more than a 5-percent increase in state aid, 60 percent of voters would have to agree to override the cap.
    The Working Families Party, influential with the Democratic party that controls the Assembly and governor’s office, called a tax cap “merely a gimmick.”
    “It neither cuts taxes for those who already can’t afford them, nor promises state aid to make tax increases unnecessary,” said Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party. “We need to repeal the Pataki-era tax cuts for the wealthiest New Yorkers.”
    The powerful New York State United Teachers union and the state School Boards Association oppose a tax cap.
    Kenneth Adams of the state Business Council said the commission’s cap “offers a real chance to make New York’s economy com- petitive again.”
    Even New York City schools, with little property tax income, would benefit from the commission’s recommendation to eliminate two dozen mandated programs and costs created by the Legislature, but not paid for by the state.
    The commission headed by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi also calls for changes to the state’s STAR tax subsidy designed to lower school taxes. He said STAR, which now costs the state $5 billion a year, has done little or nothing to slow local school spending.
    “It’s clear a property tax cap is essential,” Suozzi said. “You can’t afford every great program. You have to have some fiscal discipline. The cap forces hard choices and discipline.”
    Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he was reviewing the report and noted that the Assembly’s Democratic majority has long called for meaningful tax relief.
    “Any action that we take must guarantee that schoolchildren across the state will have the resources necessary to get a quality education,” Silver said.
    Suozzi said poor school districts that can’t raise enough in local taxes would be able to turn to the state for more aid.
    “You have to bring some sanity back into this process because it’s low- and moderate-income people who are suffering the most,” Suozzi told reporters.
    The report, called preliminary, goes to Paterson today. A final report that will take on additional areas including the state’s high cost of special education and the unique fiscal problems of the state’s four biggest city districts and poor rural districts. The final report is due in December, but Suozzi said many of the proposals released Monday should be taken up by the Legislature this year.
    “It’s a comprehensive examination of the issue,” said Elizabeth Lynam of the independent Citizens Budget Commission. She said the proposal would improve use of STAR subsidy for the neediest taxpayers and redistribution of state funding that could make sure the districts most in need get enough state aid.
    “They not only proposed a cap which is exactly what the doctor ordered, but they actually improve the cap,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute.
    He noted the proposal allows a district to “bank” up to 1.5 percent of budget growth below 4 percent for use in tougher years. McMahon says that would eliminate automatic 4 percent increases. He also said the proposal calls for disclosure of teachers’ labor contracts.
    “This is a very solid proposal,” he said. “We’ve been getting blue ribbon reports seemingly once a decade for the 30 or 40 years on school finances. This is the fi rst one that really views things from the perspective of people paying the bills.”

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

School tax cap and other reforms worth supporting

    Only a rough outline of the longawaited Suozzi Commission report on school taxes has been released, so there’s a lot more to see. But what is known of the recommendations so far is enough to merit public support.
    The key recommendation is a cap on the growth of school property taxes, which are already the highest in the nation and increase each year well beyond the rate of inflation. The cap would be 4 percent or 120 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. That means if inflation is 3 percent, the maximum allowable increase would be 3.6 percent.
    One nice addition is an ability to “bank” up to 1.5 percent of budget growth under 4 percent for use in future years, providing a real incentive for restraint. The cap could also be overridden if 55 percent of voters in the district agree, 60 percent if the district has received more than a 5 percent increase in state aid. The need for a supermajority will make it less likely that districts, especially wealthier ones, will approve big budget increases that require exceeding the cap and then count on voters to bail them out.
    As for poorer districts, which because of low property values tend to have the highest effective tax rates, they can make the case for more state aid — something they are already getting more of for multiple years under the revised school-aid formula agreed to by Gov. Spitzer and the state Legislature in 2007. Many of their residents would also be helped under another Suozzi Commission recommendation: a “circuit breaker” that would tie tax relief under the state’s very expensive and ineffective STAR program to a family’s income. Right now, the program throws a little money around to a lot of people, regardless of need, and allows districts to continue proposing big budget increases, knowing that STAR will mask the true cost to the taxpayer.
    The report also recommends disclosure of teacher contracts. That would include not only salary schedules but those annual step increases that can invisibly turn a reported 3 percent raise into a 5 percent or 6 percent raise. If the taxpayers knew the full picture, districts might drive a harder bargain in labor negotiations.
    And they might be better able to if yet another Suozzi Commission recommendation is adopted. This one would exempt teachers from the socalled Triborough amendment, which keeps the expired contract in effect, including step increases, if they can’t agree on a new contract.
    In addition, the report calls for relief from pension sweeteners and other costly mandates that are not funded by the state.
    The teacher unions and school boards are predictably against the tax cap, but Gov. Paterson came out in support of it yesterday, and the Senate has long been in favor. That leaves Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has never been known for standing up to unions or for spending restraint.
    There are three elements to school spending: local taxes, school budgets and state aid. The cap and other recommendations touch on them all. They don’t guarantee fiscal discipline, but they are a decent start and should be adopted.

NYS Lotto for edumacation???????

SHOW ME THE $$ TRAIL.................................where is that damn monkey and his friend the elephant in the room,,,,BTW the pigs are still flying in NYS,,,and there is still no straw for the bricks........

There's no such thing as a tax cap.  It's just a matter of what pocket it comes out of.  If they tax the local taxes at an increase of 4%, but the budget goes up 10%, then the rest needs to be paid by someone else...by another tax.

That's right.....just a circle jerk if ya ask me......the money comes from some where and some politician will be blamed/praised for it......they are part of the layers of the onion too.....the more of them there are and the 2 parties, do well to divide the masses and make the pendulum swing......which is fine, in America we dont want a dictatorship,,,,but, when the masses are left in the edumacated wet paper bag--it leads to issues we have facing us now........

we cry and cry for the government to 'ease' our life(not by lowering taxes) but by making programs to make life nicer........then there is the issue of legalism leading to a paradox,,,,,folks no longer need to use their minds and be accountable to themselves, family, society,,,never mind the politicians being accountable, they are grown out of this society we now have in front of us.....especially in NYS(cause I live here).......

so as for a tax cap----just robbing Peter to pay Paul......and I think Mary is on her way to sing too.........

http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
Tax cap?
How about
spending cap?

    The hottest issue right now before our state government is a “tax cap,” as it’s called, which means a limit on the amount that school property taxes can increase from one year to the next. This was proposed by a state commission and has been endorsed by Gov. Paterson among others.
    I’m sure you are dying to know what I think of it, and I’m happy enough to oblige, but we need to be clear about what a tax cap is and what it’s not.
    It’s a limit on the amount of money that a school district could raise through its own locally imposed property taxes. It’s not a limit on how much it could spend, and it’s not a limit on how much it could receive in state money.
    It could spend as much as it pleases. It would just have to get the money from somewhere other than local property taxes, which means from the state. From one public pocket rather than the other.
    That’s how the much-ballyhooed STAR program works. It’s supposed to reduce your property taxes, and it does, but only by shifting the cost to the state, meaning to our income taxes. You can say that’s an improvement, since income taxes are fairer than property taxes, but it’s hardly a savings.
    Perversely, as we have seen, the STAR program has not led school boards to economize but on the contrary has enabled them to spend more than ever, since the burden on property taxes, the most readily felt burden, has been eased.
    I assume the same would be true of a tax cap as long as there is no corresponding spending cap. School boards could spend more than ever, since the added burden would be absorbed into the state budget, it would get deducted from our paychecks, and we would hardly notice.
    In other words, I think a tax cap is a diversion from the real problem.

Quoted Text

In other words, I think a tax cap is a diversion from the real problem.

ain't that a fact and where did I put my pet monkey?????

Well, nothing will be happening on this this year apparently.  From the news today, there will be no action on a Property Tax cap.  The Legislature has declined to take it up.