Difficult Budget Season Ahead with Property Tax Cap in Place

Along with the approval of the Same-Sex Marriage Bill on June 24, an agreement on a two percent property tax cap was reached. This cap had been discussed since Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office, and puts a two percent limit on property tax increases; one of the toughest caps in the nation.

While this is designed to help curb rising property taxes in New York, many 2011-12 school budgets, including Miller Place and Rocky Point, would not have passed as is if the cap had been imposed. Miller Place's budget passed with a 3.89 tax levy increase, while Rocky Point passed with an increase of 4.93.

In response, Rocky Point Board of Education Vice President Diane Burke is calling for mandate relief and for the State to give them full control to manage their districts.

"It's going to be difficult to manage a property tax cap without significant mandate relief," Burke said. "Im not so sure that that would be even enough. The truth is that if you want to put the burden on the district to pay for the lion's share of educating the children on our own, then you need to give us the bonus of managing our own district.

"The state cant manage the district or pretend to manage the district and not pay for it. If you want us to pay for more of it by eliminating funding and capping our taxing ability and continue to throw unfunded mandates on us, you need to give us the ability to manage on our own, you can't have it both ways."

Miller Place PTO member Laurel Sutton has mixed feelings on the cap.

"One the one hand everyone is geting taxed out of their homes, we're all paying high property taxes and it's a real killer," she said. "On the other hand the cap could be devestating for schools because rarely do we go up by just two percent. As a property owner it gets harder and harder, and I'm hoping if nothing else, this will also make people look other places for better ways to fund the district and better ways to cut back expenses or bring in different varieties of income."

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a way around the cap. School board's can propose a tax increase higher than two percent, and that can go through if 60 percent of the voters pass the budget. This year, Miller Place's passed by 66 percent, Rocky Point's by 67 percent.

"It's pushing people to look for alternatives so that might be another positive but it could go the other way because it's just going to be really hard on the kids," Sutton said. "It's going to be even harder next year...we're going to have a very crazy year.