Local school districts continue to chafe under the constraints of the state’s 2 percent annual cap on tax-levy increases, and rightfully complain they are still waiting on Albany to delivery mandate relief. Taxpayers likely have a different thought: Where would we be without it?
This is the second year for school districts under the New York’s property-tax cap — the so-called blunt instrument crafted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature to lessen the annual hurt from raised property taxes. Property owners in the Lower Hudson Valley pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, most of it driven by school taxes. The cap won’t change that.
Districts are offering up spending plans — which voters will decide on May 21 — that set the path for education in the next academic year, and for years to come. Voters also elect school board trustees; these stewards help order priorities amid ever tightening budgets and sometimes contradictory instructions from parents: Make our schools the best — but watch the spending……
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