The New York Senate passed a school property tax cap in a special session on Friday and sent the bill to the Assembly where it faces an uphill battle. Gov. David Paterson recalled the Legislature to convene in a special session on Aug. 19 to find $600 million of savings and to consider the property tax cap.
“Enacting a property tax cap is a good starting point, but it is only one piece of the puzzle,” Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Center, said in a press release. “The measures we passed today in our special session will provide much-needed relief to taxpayers and is the beginning of the process of reducing property taxes.”
The Senate’s minority Democrats tried and failed to add a “circuit-breaker” amendment to the bill. A property tax circuit-breaker would limit property taxes paid by a property owner based on household income. Senate Democrats criticized the bill as pandering, according to press reports. The property tax cap has been opposed by the New York State Union of Teachers, which has instead pushed the property tax circuit-breaker.
The bill would limit annual real property-tax growth to the lesser of 4% over the previous year’s levy or 120% of the annual consumer price index increase. The cap would apply to all school districts except those in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse.
Capital expenditures and debt service would be exempt from the cap. Districts could override the cap if 55% of the voters approved, in certain circumstances. If a district increased property taxes by less than 4%, it would be able to save up to 1.5% of the unused tax levy growth for a later date.
Despite a considerable expenditure of political capital on the part of the Democratic governor, the Democratic-led Assembly has been cool the idea of a property tax cap.
The Senate also passed legislation to limit pension cost growth to school districts, increased aid for the construction of “green” schools, a ban on unfunded state mandates to school districts, a two-year moratorium on property tax reassessments and incentives to consolidate services among districts.
The school property tax cap was one of the recommendations made in June by a state commission headed by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi.
