The tax cap effect was on full display in yesterday’s school budget voting. School budgets were approved at a record-high rate of 99.3 percent, adding to evidence that districts can live within a property tax cap set at either 2 percent or the prior year’s average rate of inflation, whichever is less. Read More
Nearly half of the 669 school districts seeking voter approval for budgets on Tuesday, May 16 are presenting spending plans that call for increasing property taxes as high as the 2011 property tax cap law allows, according to an analysis released today by the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
A mandated state takeover of local Medicaid costs, added to the House GOP health bill by U.S. Reps. Chris Collins and John Faso, promises relief for property taxpayers across New York. However, some counties stand to save more than others. Read More
EJ McMahon with the fiscally conservative Empire Center, who also testified, said the real issue is that the STAR rebate checks are poorly conceived. “That’s a really bad example of tax policy,” said McMahon, who praised lawmakers for agreeing to an actual tax cut for middle-class income earners. Read More
The Empire Center has updated its June report that ranked 2014 property taxes with 2015 data recently released by the state comptroller's office. Read More
While a report benchmarking property taxes across the state recently released by the nonpartisan Albany think tank the Empire Center showed that the Mohawk Valley finished in the middle of the pack as a region with a median tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value of $31.75, the rates among individual municipalities differ greatly. Read More
If you live in Schenectady, New York, then you have the highest effective property tax rate in the Capital Region, according to a new report out this week from conservative think tank, the Empire Center. Read More
With just three work days remaining in the legislative session, a number of bills that would loosen the property-tax cap await consideration in both houses. The pending legislative efforts range from small modifications to the cap formula to allow more spending without triggering the cap’s supermajority requirement, to doing away with the supermajority requirement altogether. Read More