Tax reform's your big chance, Suozzi

great column! the tax payers and home owners of long island can no longer afford the cost of the school system. the schools MUST learn to hold the line on spending. cutting spending is what's really called for! suozzi could make himself a hero if he does what you suggest.

Does anyone but me see the absurdity of putting someone in charge of a tax cutting commission whose success as County Executive is all due to a 26% county tax hike and millions in state hand outs?

If the state has any role to play in cutting local school taxes, it is by cutting unfunded mandates that eat up a huge share of local district spending. Putting local school districts into an artificial strait-jacket with a tax cap is not the way to go.

I thought "conservatives" like Marlin were in favor of local control. In this case, he wants the state--that already rips off the tax payers in the so-called "high-spending" districts by giving them almost no aid--to step in and tell them what they can and can't do in their own communities.

School district budgets are much more transparent than state or county budgets. They are put together by locally elected school boards and are put to a vote each year. That's about as democratic and local as it gets.

Leave it alone.

The school ditricts quietly fought FOR all the unfunded mandates! It's their excuse for never ending tax increases while they claim to be blameless.
Total consolidation is the only answer. The current system is so corrupt that it cannot be fixed.

Poppycock!, as T.R. would have said.
I would have expected more from an accomplished author than a simplistic so-called solution to an extremely complex problem.
Yes, the goal should be keeping costs and taxes down to a more acceptible level, but a flat cap accomplishes neither. More important is to examine how the money is being spent and where cuts can be made which will not imperil our children's education. One place to start is to curtail the fraud and abuse like those attorneys who are stealing from our pension system at a high cost to the taxpayers.
My grandma taught me a long time ago that anyone who offers a simple solution to a complex problem is either a fool himself, or playing you for one.

An excellent, timely, and very necessary column. George J. Marlin succinctly states the problem and offers several practical and logical solutions for consideration.

Here is an outline of the column..........

The problem:

Excessive school taxes. Fully two-thirds of one's total property tax bill goes directly to a Long Island school district. At present, there does not seem to be any major effort to control the annual costs that 'ratchet' up the increases in the school tax. The state-initiated STAR program was a well-intentioned effort to alleviate this ever-increasing tax burden, but the school districts would have none of it. They saw this extra money in the taxpayers' pockets as theirs; and they proceeded to grab every last bit of it. This effectively neutralized the program.
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The writer's solutions (from the article):

1. Allow districts to increase spending at the rate of inflation but not above.

2. Force districts to make difficult choices - like increasing class size, requiring health care contributions from teachers and other staff, and freezing teacher salaries.

3. Roll back certain state mandates.

*
It is my firm belief that certainly more than one - and perhaps *all*- of these solutions will be implemented eventually, as there will simply be no other choice.

To the powers that be: The time to act on this is NOW!

Dear Mr. George J. Marlin,

I have my house for sale in Herricks/New Hyde Park, NY under the value of the town assessors and I can't even sell it. When is there going to be another reassessment done the right way with the value of the houses going down. I am a World War 2 combat veteran senior citzen 81 years old and still working to pay the bills in this town.

Good synopsis George, but note that Basil Paterson was removed from the Suozzi Commission membership when his son became Governor.

you want to be a hero politican do away with the amt tax the amt tax will errode the middle class tax payer out of business. middle class will be a thing of the past you will have your new poor, & the fat & rich cat. the amt does not take into consideration INFLATION, LAUGH NOW, IF ITS NOT CORRECTED, TO DO AWAY WITH IT, INSTEAD OF A TAX REFUND, THE MAJORITY US WILL BE WRITING OUT BIG CHECKS TO UNCLE SAM THAT WE CANT AFFORD TO DO. think about it. CHECK IT OUT THIS IS NOT BULL WE WILL BE IN BAD SHAPE.

the overpopulated long island wasn;t prepared 40 years ago for what has shaped our society of late, the budgets did not allow for growth in population, the lottery money we were promised went to upstate ny schools, haven't heard any big $$$ coming into either nassau and suffolk since the inception of the lottery,how is it possible that in many areas of upstate ny they pay little taxes for their big parcels of land, why because they don't have a school on every corner, did our politicians not realize that there would be a significant cost involved or were they blind ....i say to ny government lets keep our $$$ here, legalize gambling in this state and let NYRA create within their grounds at the racetracks casino's, why lose NY gamblers to either CONN. or NJ the income for our state could help alleviate this tax burden that is crippling our society

Mr. marlin's article is informative, clear on issues and well written. However, the suggestions are bandages not real solutions. Why not think out side of the box? Why not legislate the top administrators (superintendents and asst superintendents) to be elected officials with a six year term? If we believe in aspiring politicians like Suozzi to do real good to the school tax issue, why don't we believe there are some sincere people willing to work as top school administrators at a reasonable salary comparable to other community elected officials. You don't need a special PhD to love kids, care about schools and manage people. There are plenty of experienced administrative and finance managers who can run a school district and be accountable directly to the community and a governing board. Unions would not be able to control and manipulate the locally elected officials as much as they can do in Albany. We can place some qualifications on the candidates to refelect the community's desire and philosophy in having a great education system without going broke.

Outsideofthebox