Saturday, January 29, 2011

School Tax Cap Introduced:Updated

On Saturday the Senate introduced a bill (SB 2706) from Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville, which establishes limitations upon school district and local government tax levies.
According to the bill's text, it was introduced at the behest of the Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and it likely represents his opening gambit before he unveils his budget on Tuesday. While it hasn't been scheduled for a committee meeting yet, the bill was back dated for Friday so it will have aged enough to pass on Monday.
The bill seems to exempt New York City from these restrictions on tax levies, but the rest of the language is jargon that goes way above my head.
I have deciphered the fact that a local government can exceed the tax levy with a 2/3 majority vote of that local government body.
There are other exceptions in the bill, like when two organizations consolidate.
For the entire bill language go to the Assembly Public Info site and input the bill "s2706". If anyone has added insight into this legislation, leave a comment or shoot me a tweet @poozer87.
A teacher in Western New York had this comment: "all they will do with this tax cap is make small school districts and town government go bankrupt so that they can force them to consolidate."

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