Editorial: Cuomo’s Latest Tax Proposal a Gimmick to Make Governor Look Good
Let’s face it. The tax cap enacted two and a half years ago in New York State has done virtually nothing to help property owners, particularly those in Westchester, get out from under paralyzing tax bills.
While perhaps helping to halt slightly steeper increases that were seen in prior decades, the ballyhooed legislation was supposed to get spendthrift school districts and municipalities to fall in line and bring fiscal sanity to the beleaguered public.
The problem was that by the time it was enacted most districts and municipalities, recognizing the upheaval that was taking place before them during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, were already instituting their own spending caps and austerity plans.
Now Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a new grand plan to make him look like he’s saving New Yorkers from the death grip of sky-high taxes. His tax freeze proposal, at least superficially, makes sense. Provide incentives to cut back all fat and aggressively share services. If mission’s accomplished, the constituents are rewarded with a tax freeze and everyone looks good.
But the proposal that has been released outlines a numbingly complicated hare-brained scheme that places a disproportionately large percentage of blame for high taxes on school districts while doing nothing to get the state’s responsibilities under control.
Decoding the proposal reveals that if all the taxing districts within a jurisdiction stay within the tax cap, most taxpayers get a rebate for any increase in the first year. If it’s achieved again in the second year and the jurisdictions submit a valid service sharing plan, rebates are issued for a second year. So far, so good.
However, the proposal as it relates to school districts is where the plan runs off the rails. It calls for the largest school district in each BOCES region to oversee a plan to have at least 1 percent savings throughout the region in order to get the tax rebate.
Under this craziness, if a district needs a new roof on its high school or must hire a fifth-grade teacher because of expanding enrollment, it will no longer be asking for support from its residents but appealing for permission to more than a dozen districts, each with their own agendas.
The hope is that sharing services will significantly cut costs. But sharing payroll or having a regional transportation system are comparatively small potatoes and will never markedly decrease taxes. It’s the big-ticket items that the state controls that must be addressed: outrageous pension costs and Medicaid costs for counties.
And how is that mandate relief plan coming along, Governor?
Does Cuomo want to force district consolidation or county-wide districts? He would never go on record with either because that would be politically imprudent. But one thing is certain: tax caps and service sharing will never come close to helping Westchester ditch the tag of highest taxed county in the nation.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
