The NY State Senate voted this week (by a 60-1 margin) to have the State government fund state-wide school spending to the tune of $9.5 billion. The result would be to eliminate the tax burden on property owners,which, for most taxpayers locally, represents more than 50% of their real property tax bill.
Jay Gallagher, writing in the Democrat & Chronicle correctly characterized the vote and plan as a fantasy. The theory under which State revenues would grow (and outstrip new spending) by an amount sufficient to produce the needed $9.5 billion (without new State taxes), is, at best, flawed and, at worst, utter nonsense. Although it is possible that revenue growth will continue, the past five years have seen spending increases in Albany that, if continued, would eat up any money slated to go to school tax relief.
There is another problem with the idea of the State paying the entire bill that Gallagher did not mention, but which I consider even more important than the financial issues. If the State funded all school activities, would not the State control what activities were permitted? How would school funds be allocated? Would we be able to guarantee that our kids got their fair share of the funds?
The good news is that this idea remains in the realm of Albany fun and fiction. The Assembly has no intention of passing such a bill. The bad news is that, sooner or later, Sheldon Silver and his cohorts will realize what a great way this would be to divert even more money away from "rich" suburban schools to the "poor, down-trodden kids" in inner-city school districts. The lure of a "magic bullet" that will eliminate school taxes will be just the ticket to blind many suburban voters to the fact that they will be losing yet another aspect of local control over their lives.
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1 comment:
Well written article.
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