How to secure a $400 rebate on school taxes

To the editor: On Jan. 20, 2006, Governor Pataki announced a plan called “STAR-Plus” to be included in his 2006-07 Executive Budget. This plan could provide each homeowner in Warwick School District with a $400 school tax rebate as well as increasing the current STAR school tax exemption for seniors by about 13.5 percent. I said “could” because it is contingent on our Board of Education adopting a 2006-07 budget that would “limit school spending increases to the lesser of 4 percent or 120 percent of the increase in the Consumer Price Index.” For Warwick School taxpayers to receive the benefit of this plan, the 2006-07 Budget can not exceed the “cap” of $71,428,030, plus some exceptions that are allowed. With these exceptions added to the “cap,” I estimate that the final budget would be (roughly) $72,850,788 for Warwick School taxpayers to qualify for the $400 rebate that would be mailed from Albany directly to homeowners in October 2006. A budget at this level would give the district an increase of $4,169,989 over this year’s budget. The Board of Education should realize that, with a $400 bonus at stake, the risk of another embarrassing rejection at the polls is not only possible but very probable. Should taxpayers be presented with a higher budget and reject it, the mandated maximum under “Austerity Budget” rules would be substantially the same. Why risk it? While this “STAR-Plus” program does absolutely nothing to address the long-term social injustice of insatiable demand for tax increase from property owners each year, it does indicate that state legislators acknowledge that local school board spending is out of control and this spending can not be sustained by the yearly increasing of school taxes that far exceed the rate of inflation and the increase in the Consumer Price Index. I firmly believe that each citizen (not just property owners) has a civic responsibility to provide funding of the public school system. It just makes more sense to tax income than to push low income families and retirees from their home because of excessive school taxes on their property. The State of New York is ultimately responsible for our public school system and, sooner or later, they will have to address the issue of a more equitable method of financing them. I suggest a good start would be to define exactly what programs are mandatory for taxpayers to fund. The local school boards tend to support the out of proportion expansion of “enhancement” programs that far exceed what can be reasonably expected of a public school system and contributes to significantly higher taxes. I believe that the state should finance the schools out of state income tax revenues where every taxpayer contributes to funding education but only as mandated by law. Should our school system continue on the same financial trend as it has over the last ten years, we will find our schools in a similar position as General Motors. Bill Fullerton Warwick