When public schools across the Empire State open their doors for 2018-19, pupil enrollment will be at its lowest level in nearly 30 years. Read More
Tag: Education
Now the state is facing complaints by districts that the process to obtain their piece of the pie is too lengthy and complicated. A study by the Empire Center called the rollout to local districts "sluggish and haphazard." The fiscally conservative center also questioned how the borrowed money is being spent, with such a sizable portion going for construction, not the new technology on which the bond issue was sold to voters. Read More
Her tax plan is “completely unrealistic and excessive,” Mr. McMahon said, adding that it is “based on the assumption that businesses and individuals alike are simply oblivious to higher tax rates.” Read More
Teachers in the Lawrence school system are calling on district officials to resolve a contract-negotiation impasse that is about to enter its eighth year. Read More
Among New York school districts with enrollments of 4,000 or more, the list of highest property taxes per pupil is what you’d expect — topped by Great Neck, Scarsdale, Syosset and Bedford. In fifth place is a somewhat less wealthy outlier: the Northport-East Northport district. It will raise $28,556 per pupil in property taxes next year, based on data from the state’s 2018-19 Property Tax Report Card. That’s 57 percent above the Suffolk County average. Read More
On Monday, as Empire Center fiscal expert E.J. McMahon noted, Census numbers pegged New York’s 2016 per-student outlays at $22,366, or nearly twice the $11,762-per-student national average. And the gap, McMahon adds, has only been growing. Read More
"I think the tax cap has induced a sense of complacency," said E.J. McMahon, founder of the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. "It’s seen as automatically keeping a fairly tight lid on the levy. But at the first sign of fiscal stress and added pressure for higher taxes, I'd expect turnout to rebound." Read More
New York doled out $22,366 for each elementary and secondary schoolkid — 90 percent higher than the national average of $11,762, according to Empire Center research director E.J. McMahon. Read More