They’ve done it. With a handful of exceptions, the boards of education in Lower Hudson Valley school districts have done what hasn’t been seen in decades: delivered to voters proposed budgets for the 2009-10 school year that reflect spending increases of under 2 percent. As for tax-levy projections, about 10 districts among the 53 districts project less than 1 percent increases. Wealthy Chappaqua’s tax-levy estimate is at 0 percent. Why, Bedford and Briarcliff Manor school districts each have projected a decrease.
Local districts echo a statewide trend. Throughout New York, districts are proposing the lowest average spending and property tax increases since 2000, the year they began submitting data to the state Education Department for annual “Property Tax Report Cards.”…