Detractors weigh in on school property tax cap
ALBANY — With New York consistently topping lists of the highest-taxed states in the nation, legislators are looking at a tax cap to help corral school property taxes, which represent about 60 percent of tax levies collected across the state.
They're looking to the east, toward Massachusetts, and are favoring the path that state embarked on 30 years ago when voters approved capping annual property-tax increases at 2.5 percent.
With New York's voters earlier this month approving 92 percent of school district budgets, school taxes are primed to rise an average of slightly more than 3 percent for the 2010-11 school year. In Monroe County, that increase averages about 2.4 percent, despite schools losing an estimated $62 million in state aid next year as Gov. David Paterson attempts to close a $9.2 billion budget gap.
New Yorkers pay property tax bills that are 79 percent higher than the national average, a 2008 state report found.
Nine counties and New York City exceeded the average for school property
"I think that if there's overwhelming support for a property tax cap, there's also a great deal of resistance to it," said E.J. McMahon, executive director of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
The pressure from property taxpayers who believe they are stretched to the limit "is never going to go away