As I wrote in an earlier post, Governor Andrew Cuomo is very proud of the 2% tax cap that he placed (through legislation) on all school districts. They cannot pass a budget with an increase greater than 2% unless a supermajority of 60% of voters approve. This is undemocratic on its face, since 55% or 50.1% wins the election in a democratic society. But Cuomo wanted to show that he was a fiscal conservative. At the election a few days ago, 99% of the state’s school districts approved increases in their school budget, and the average increase was 1.9%, obviously to avoid the governor’s cap. Eighteen districts asked voters to approve an increase greater than 2%, and 12 districts did. New York spends a lot on public schools, but its funding is highly inequitable. The legislators from the most affluent districts take care of their own.
Want to know the real effects of Cuomo’s budget cap? Here is a comment by a reader who calls himself “Memphis Louie”:
Cuomo’s tax cap locked in a wide existing disparity in funding–and insures that the funding gaps will widen every year–and he calls this one of his great successes as governor. At the present time NY State’s wealthiest school districts spend $8,500 more per pupil than the 100 poorest school districts. Looking forward a 1% increase in the local tax levy in wealthy districts will raise over $400 per pupil while a similar increase in the levy in the poorest districts will generate an additional $51 per pupil. Project that out over a decade and our existing spending gaps widen into chasms. The result is that the students most likely to experience success are offered lavish programs while the students who come from the most challenging circumstances get barebones programs. Then our governor calls out the failing schools–the ones with the most challenging demographics….lots of noise–but never a solution from Cuomo! NY State’s funding formulas are highly politicized and contrived to drive state funds into the districts of key political leaders–essentially, school funding is distributed like pigs at the trough. The big pigs eat until they are full and the rest get the scraps! Cuomo touts this a one of his greatest successes and the TEAPublicans want to make it permanent (because even in our heavily gerrymandered state they feel threatened that enough people will go to the polls in 2016 that they will lose their majority!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What makes no sense is that a cap like this assumes no student population change.
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Yep. So districts with declining enrollment get more per pupil from their tax dollars. I live in a rising enrollment district and a high tax district. All things considered, we are thankful for the tax cap.
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Cuomo is an agent for the Wall St neoliberals for whom a primary goal is to dismantle, disable, and disorganize all public sector social services and oversight agencies so as to make govt a non-factor in the private looting of the national wealth and resources. Cuomo and the GOP gov. Christie of NJ, a bully like Cuomo, both imposed the 2% cap, starving the public schools at the same time that a mass infusion of Broadie-schooled supts. and state DOE chiefs enforced costly standardized testing and large tech buys to enable the testing, further deranging the weakened public school budgets away from pupil services and needs. Advanced societies like ours produce enormous wealth which can easily overcome apparently intractable problems, like hunger and homelessness, like medically uninsured adults and kids, like oversize classes, like crumbling infrastructure of public schools/bridges/roadways/mass transit, like inadequate public health services, etc. The fact that our phenomenally rich society has 24% of its kids living in poverty and hundreds of thousands of homeless and evicted families, is a choice imposed on the 99% by the billionaires and their paid agents in govt, like Cuomo, Christie, Malloy, former Pres. Clinton, the Bushes, and candidate Hillary.
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Grover Norquist is celebrating.
What political party did you say Cuomo represents?
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Cuomo’s tax cap institutionalizes inequity. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer. Since Cuomo wants to make teachers accountable, he should take responsibility for his own actions. New York lost a court case about inequitable school funding in the state, and rather than make changes to address the funding inequality, the governor has chosen to ignore the court order. Moreover, his infamous tax cap only widens the funding gap between poor and wealthy districts.
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You’re asking for one of the rarest of things in a modern politician. Someone who screams about accountability for others accepting accountability for him or herself.
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I live in a wealthy district. We get less than 5% of our school budget frim NYS. Its all property taxes. The average single family home here has taxes in excess of $45,000. Lower income and property value districts get 50% or more from NYS for school budget. When the state cuts, those with bigger amounts if state aid lose more dollars. Our wealthy district simply does not get that much from the State. Its 95% property taxes.
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In your wealthy district with a solid local tax base children are likely to be well supported. The data stands for itself–NY spend much more on kids with all the tools to be successful than it does upon those we know are at risk of not succeeding. That is not the pattern in either NJ or Mass–two states who provide additional support for children with high needs and therefore outperform NY State on NAEP measures. Now we have a gasbag governor that talks about taking over high need school districts (fyi-NY State took over the Roosevelt district and ran it for a decade with no positive impact). Controlling costs and equalizing educational opportunity are two issue that the Cuomo noise machine loves to conflate–be careful when they address these two distinct issues.
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We have the same in NJ and Christie is proud of himself for that too. Let me tell you what tho….our taxes are ridiculous.
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Dear Diane, I am a Board member of the Buffalo Board of Education. The District is the target of Governor Cuomo and like minded Board members who would privatize the District. The most recent attack is the move by a local State Assemblywoman to legislate mayoral control. Here is a link to my blog post regarding this latest attack on the District, it’s children, teachers, parent groups and Board members who are fighting to maintain the autonomy of the system.
http://barbaranevergold.blogspot.com/2015/05/buffalo-schools-mayoral-control-fact.html
Please continue to tell our story; we need your support. Barbara Seals Nevergold
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Property taxes on Long Island and in other areas of New York State are ridiculously high and forcing many middle-class homeowners, including many older, retired folks, to sell their homes and move out of state. These high taxes are also making home ownership for most young families unattainable. I don’t think those who pay these exorbitant taxes or those who are looking to purchase a home would disagree that the need for a tax cap is real. But, as NY Senator George Latimer points out, a robust discussion about the cap, including mandate relief and need for increased state aid for education should have taken place prior to a vote on making the cap permanent. You can listen to Senator Latimer’s testimony here:
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I think that there is a need to collect taxes from those who are robbing us blind and hiding their money offshore, manipulating the stock market, purchasing political power in order to further their agenda and enact policies beneficial to themselves at the expense of our communities.
Albany is full of the handmaidens of the wealthy and the powerful. I do not pretend to know the solution to the tax problem here in NY state, but I sure am tired of public education being slammed and children having to sacrifice their futures to the corrupt policy making going on in Albany on behest of the crooks who ran our economy off the cliff a mere seven years ago.
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That’s right, the tax levy cap was supposed to be accompanied by mandate relief. We got the former but not the latter.
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The way schools are funded needs to change…property taxes is an unfair and inequitable system.
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