Twenty-seven* school districts were seeking to override the state's property tax cap in yesterday's school budget votes. Twenty of these districts -- or 74 percent -- failed to collect the needed 60 percent supermajority to pass, according to news accounts. The closest result was in the Cornwall School District in Orange County, which fell two votes short of an override supermajority. Read More
Just two school districts -- out of nearly 700 in New York -- will be limited to the new zero-tax hike contingency budget provision of the state's new property tax cap law next year. Read More
Nineteen school districts that attempted to override the tax cap in last month's school budget votes will present revised budgets to voters tomorrow. Nine of those districts are resubmitting budgets below the cap, seven have budgets at the cap and three districts will try again to override the cap. Read More
Forty-nine school districts* were seeking to override the state's new property tax cap in yesterday's school budget votes. Of those, our review of regional media coverage suggests 30 districts* passed an override, while 19 districts voted their budgets down. Seven of the proposed overrides failed to collect even 50 percent of the vote. Read More
Governor Cuomo’s 2014-15 Executive Budget would devote more resources to initiatives described as “tax cuts” than any state budget we’ve seen in quite a few years. This in itself is an encouraging sign of the recognition that New York needs to do more to shed its reputation as a high-cost, high-tax state. Read More
For upstate homeowners, the centerpiece of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed $2.2 billion tax-cut plan is a two-year "freeze" on the growth of New York's smothering property taxes. An analysis of tax rates in two local municipalities — one urban, one suburban — reveals that Capital Region homeowners' rebates could be significantly more modest than advertised. Read More
‘Building on Success” was the theme of Gov. Cuomo’s election-year budget presentation in Albany this week. But while Cuomo boasts he’s got New York headed in the right direction, the latest economic and demographic indicators suggest we still have a long way to go. Read More
Empire Center President E.J. McMahon spoke to WSHU radio in Long Island about Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address on Wednesday. Regarding Cuomo's proposed property tax plan, McMahon described it as a "so-called freeze." "It is not going to produce any significant or lasting saving for anybody," he added. Read More