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
New York surpassed all states with per-pupil elementary and secondary school spending of $22,366 per pupil as of 2016, according to the latest U.S. Census data. Read More
Long Island voters will weigh in Tuesday on nearly $13 billion in proposed spending for the 2018-19 academic year that affects about 440,000 public school students, in an election season with a focus on security spurred by the February mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Read More
Nearly half of the 669 school districts are proposing tax levy increases that go right up to the cap, according to an analysis by The Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank. A total of 309 districts are at the cap limit. The center claims this fact is evidence that school districts would have proposed higher levy increases without the cap. Read More
“New York’s school districts are receiving record-high levels of aid from Albany to educate fewer students, and our school taxes are still climbing,” said Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center. Read More